Had my hopes up a little bit to high. So here is how it went, Their property was in the largest wild fire in Nebraska’s history, 2012 (at least since they started keeping track of such things) it’s canyon country along the Niobrara river. Cedar, ponderosa pine, some ash and elms, & burr oak. Steep slopes with slick dead grass. Access to the oak trees was difficult at best. Burr oak trees are a white oak i guess, but they don’t get very big. I cut most of the biggest rounds of the day and I don’t think any would’ve been 12”. Lots of 4-6” stuff. It’s all been dead for so long there was virtually no bark to deal with. Grey in color and sounds like bowling pins when you knock them together. Super dry & hard should be excellent for the stove and no 3 year wait. Ended up getting them 2 pretty decent pickup loads and probably close to 3/4 of a pickup load for myself. She said that was way more than they would have gotten themselves Didn’t get much for pictures, just a couple of skidding a few with a tractor and old homemade winch (slooooww ). It was a fun day spent with saws and friends, but at 107 miles one way, probably won’t do it again unless we make it a little bigger day and I can take a trailer to fill up also. When I got there all the wood they had in the rack/ pile was probably equal to 4-5 bundles like you get at a gas station. I explained what you people have taught me about the 3yr plan
Saws used = my 562xp, a husky 550, stihl 170, & a stihl 361 (I think). Nothing big enough to get the 372 out for
This is the load I bought home. If it was leveled out with the box sides it would be close to a full load. So a bit shy of 1/2 a cord probably
107 miles wow, but you have to do what you have to do! Was this your first experience with oak? Nice and dry. Looks like it could be burned right away.
Yes my first oak, gonna save it till it starts getting below zero. It’s dry as can be it seems, I’ll split a few of the bigger ones mostly just to check em with a MM, but most of it won’t need splitting.
Thats great. You must be excited about it! Im curious as to what the MM reads as well? So basically 7 year standing dead or was some on the ground?
Nice score right there. I'm glad you didn't have to buck it, I saw the metal staining on a few rounds.
Thanks T. Jeff. A lot of metal staining going on. Found a couple of lag screws already as I’m splitting.
Ok... I didn’t wait for below zero temperatures, but it was down in the single digits and I didn’t have much wood in the basement so I tried some of it. Pretty impressive stuff, That oak! I wood be willing to drive quite a ways to get more if I could get a big enough load. I’m thinking I could probably cut the amount of wood I burn in a season by 25%!!! If’n I had access to a steady supply of it
Still knocking this pile down, yesterday split and stacked another heavy face cord bringing me up to 2 cords split and stacked. Worked on more of the rounds today, still have about another 1/2 cord to split and stack. Hoping to get the rest done next weekend.
Your welcome, we all need some encouragement now and then... especially when muscles get to aching or life gets in the way.