I get a text message couple weeks ago from the guy i scored three truckloads of red maple back in the Winter/Spring. See my thread Swamped with red maple! "Brad, you want more wood"? His son was coming to take the wood since February...famous last words! Nothing like making firewood when its hot out! It was an average "hot" Summer day today with temps in the mid to upper 80's. Pulled a PU full today. Drive in, back up and load. Cant get much better, oh and three minutes from home! Not a huge red maple fan, but ill take it! As before random lengths 12-20" Maybe three truckloads for the score. Any wood i dont want ill put in his trailer and he will cart to dump. Some is buggy and punky in the center. Tossed a couple gnarly ones in it today. A lot of the bark was loose and i peeled what i could off when i unloaded. Luckily it was stacked on wood chips so not too dirty Todays load. Maybe half cord. Two more truck fulls for the score. The tree guy never came back to fell a few more trees. Possible tree job for me. Found this garter/ribbon snake right at the end of loading. A few logs later a field mouse scurried out. Scared me more than the snake did. It was mad and kept sticking its tongue out at me. Looks like it may be blind? I let it go to catch the mouse!
Nice score of BTU's. The garter snake may be going through its molting process, hence the blind eyes.
i did find a snakeskin in the pile. Never thought of that. Learned something new today. Thanks GrJfer
Went late this afternoon and pulled another truck full out. There were several logs with punky/buggy centers and a few gnarlies we loaded on his trailer for the dump. Mostly bigger logs on this load. Longer lengths too. (20-24") (groan). At least one load left. Didnt have to use saw or cant. Neighbor was home and i couldnt back into my PA/stacking area.
It suffered a blunt impact trauma! Tree got in the way backing up with tailboard down Warner I was delivering some wood to my Stepdaughter in Rhode Island last January. She is about two hours away and a casual burner. Im backing around her yard, it was dusk. There's a lot of true blind spots on that truck including cage from racks. I cant turn my neck that well anymore. Im backing up and her stoner boyfriend neglects to tell me im close to a tree. Im too cheap to buy an aftermarket or used one for now. I have a tendency of beating the H#$l out of tailboards. Its my sawhorse and work station when im working.
You a hoarding machine buZZsaw BRAD ...like yous feedin a OWB or something! What is your heating device anyways?
Went out and split some of the red maple tonight. Split some yesterday too. Several of the longer rounds too (not pictured). Broke the handle on my little sledge as i had to sledge and wedge the big uns in half...til it broke. Guessing about half is split of the two truck fulls so far. Have another PU full to get yet and needed to make room. Wood is nice and dry. Most of the bark comes off easily. It was felled and bucked in February.
How many lbs was the broken sledge? I ended up getting the 3 lb fiskars hammer. I don’t know that it is worth the extra price but I do think it might not be smooshing the back of my splitter the way my 5lb hammer was. I figured since i’d probably eventually be cashing in on fiskars warranty for the splitter that I could throw them a bone with the hammer purchase. It is pretty rare that I use the hammer these days thanks to the advice on here. Either a few strokes with the ax, the back of the maul on the wedges, or noodling in the worst cases. I see they have a 4lb hammer also. I am curious how their mauls work. The non fiskars maul I picked up at depot only gets used as a sledge. It just doesn’t have the secret sauce of the fiskars splitter.
luckily i can leave the culls behind. He is taking them to the dump in his trailer. Although i dont mind going to the dump as there is more WOOD there!
think it was a 4-5lb with medium length handle. A gift from a guy i got some wood from. Ill post pics later mrfancyplants
