A couple years ago I cut and split an uprooted hickory that fell across the driveway. I hauled most of it to my stacks but made a fairly large pile under a tree. I hauled the pile to my stacks and it was wet and nasty especially on the bottom with mud, leaves and nut cuttings I'm guessing from squirrels and or chipmunks. I set this wood back for burning this year and it's the last of this years wood. It dried up fine and is ready to burn but it still has mud on it and is so nasty I wont bring any of it in the house until I'm ready to load it in the stove.
been there done that. When you stack it prior to bringing to its "final seasoning spot" put a couple of 1-2" branches on the ground...itll keep it out of the mud. Ive done this in my woods. Works great!
I've been splitting some (tree service wood) piles the last couple days that were left laying on the ground since spring of last year. One nice thing is, the bark falls off and you're left with nice, clean, bark free wood in the stacks...and some really nice (ash and maple) bark for in the compost piles. (I park the yard cart next to the splitter and toss the bark right in) I started an all new pile just for this bark. I will probably put all this years yard waste in this pile. My neighbor has a tree service and another neighbor lets him dump the chips in piles in a field. the first piles are getting pretty well broke down, there is some really nice looking dirt/mulch/compost there I'm planning to put in the garden boxes...
I skid a lot of my logs, through some nasty mud. It is a two fold hit, I wreck my chains, but I then have the same issue you have. I let it dry and tap them with the isocore to clean them up. All of my wood is under cover and on 2 inch gravel, so everything dries. I will say mud seems to love drying like concrete in the bark on an ash tree!!!
There is definitely something to be said for "clean" wood. I never really realized that until I had to buy a couple face cords last winter and was amazed at how clean the stuff really was vs all mine. My wood is even stacked off the ground, using cinder blocks and 4x4's and tarped, but even after seasoning for a couple summers it's amazing how much crap ends up in the stacks between dead bugs, nests, dust from powder post beetles or whatever borers there may be.
Late last year, i volunteered to cut up some wood for a guy's father and his sister. I wanted to try the old mac 10/10 out, it was fun, and i cut up a lot of wood for the both of them. The bad thing, they had drug it through the mud, to get it to a rocked area. Lot's of mud! But, i had the fun of cutting it up with the old saw. But, even knocking the mud off and trying my best to cut clean wood, it took its toll on my chains, would i do it again, yes, i had a good time doing it, and it helped his dad and sister out.
The bottom 2 feet of my stacks were under water for several days last year when the Ohio River backed up. So I have a bunch of wood that is "painted" with fine river silt. No matter, into the stove it goes. I checked the catalyst during the warm spell a couple days ago and it didn't seem to create any problems, it's as clean as a whistle.
I experimented with some red oak leaving it uncovered for the whole drying cycle. Between the leaves and pine needles blowing into the stack and the layer between the bark and wood decomposing it has been some fairly dirty wood requiring constant sweeping up. Not really any worse than the years of dead standing red oak that had a little punk that constantly sloughed off every time it was handled. One of these days I'll have a nice drying shed.
A bit of mud is okay. If we get some I like to stack it mud side up so the rain will wash most of it off. for sure if we get a log or two that way we'll try to let Mother Nature clean it some before bucking it.
Sounds like great compost for sure. My processing area is mostly covered with leaves. Where most of the cutting is done is covered with wood crumbs, noodles, sawdust eyc. Ill disperse it to keep mud down Question: how swift was the water running by your stacks? I recently found out about 75% of my stacks are in a flood plain right next to the small river we live by. I honestly think my landlords son doesnt like me putting the wood there even though i got permission years back to do so. He said this to scare me into not stacking there any more. It has flooded a couple rimes in the last 20 years from what ive been told as my GF has lived here since 2007 and myself since 2010 and it hasnt flooded in that time. The wood is mostly stacked in half cord sized racks made out of 2x6 lumber.
Little to no current. I live on Landing Creek about 1/4 mile inland from the Ohio River. When I get flooded it's as though the sink stops up. The water comes up and retreates very slowly with almost no current.
None of my wood is top covered...ever. I have too much wood and I'm too cheap to purchase enough of anything to top cover it! Not top covering never caused a problem for me. I bring a cord up from the storage yard to the covered front porch in September. It catches plenty of breeze and some good sun so any moisture caused by not top covering dries before we start burning, usually mid October. Yeah sure, some of the sap wood on the top rows of oak starts to get punky but when it gets to the porch it drys just fine and the heart wood is dry and rock solid. Ash doesn't have sap wood like oak so that's never an issue. When the rack is about 1/2 full I stack the remainder all on one side and bring up enough to refill the other half side. I don't burn any of that for 2 or 3 weeks so it dries before burning. The same process is repeated as needed.
I've noticed a few more clinkers in the ashes if there was any mud or dirt on the splits I put in the stove. Granted, I don't have a cat stove, but that stuff shouldn't go up, but rather stay down. I've been using bark that sloughs off the splits if I leave wood in the woods or on anything but concrete or rock. It seems to work well
