My neighbor told me the story. The daughter I talked to lives out of town, and both parents passed away. The kids are trying to get the house ready to sell. Right now it sits vacant, hence why the tree being there for several days didn’t matter. May be a hard sell with a huge tree mess in the driveway. Said he’s FB “friends” with her and that she can be annoying but that he could get me the wood if I want it. At this point I’m debating saying sure, if you want to pay me in addition to the wood. Couldve had it done Sunday easy peasy. Now I gotta re hook up the trailer, reload all my tools, wtf.
Can we step back and look at this from the other side of the coin? If I lived out of town and was trying to take care of a property as well as my own and a kind neighbor called to say there was someone there working I didn’t know about I’d be suspect as well. Never know what clown might hurt themselves then try to sue. not trying to be an azz but...
Its always difficult in situations like this. You did get permission to cut and take wood and did the right thing (IMO) when the lady arrived. Brush it off and be happy with the wood you got. (some nice stuff if i may say so myself) If you can get the okay on the rest of the wood go for it. Cant beat it when that close and some primo ash to boot. Judging by how close it is to the road, it'd be free game down here unless a sign was posted. Im always very specific when i do ask..."can i have the wood" "are you keeping the wood" "Can i use a saw on your property?" etc. I had one instance last Fall where i knocked and asked. Lady says they took all they wanted and i can take the rest. Couple days later i stop and just as i start cutting she happens to come home yelling out her car window they want the wood! i took the couple rounds i bucked and left grumbling as i did. All the joys of being a roadside scrounger. Is there a lot of wood around from the storm sirbuildalot ?
There is some, but not a real lot. 2.5-3 miles in the other direction from my house is some nice Red Oak. 12"-18" diameter cut into branch less logs 8'-12' long right on the road. I may stop and ask about that this weekend. I have Red oak coming out of my butt though. I have conservatively guessing 6-7 full cords in logs of Red Oak, and probably 7 cords in stacked splits of Red Oak. I was pretty excited to get the quick seasoning Ash to give me options, and am still hoping I can finish the job as its at least another full cord and a half there to be had. Other than those two spots, a lot of small scrub wood with maybe a few wheelbarrows worth here and there. Seems most big scores are gone from the tree companies.
Every town is different. My town used to have a 3 day rule from when a tree was cut by the highway dept or tree warden. Whatever sat on town land (road right of way) was the adjacent property owner's for 3 days. After that anyone could take it. Anything onto the adjacent property owner's side of the right of way was on that person's property and became theirs to do with as they wanted. Now anything that's down on town right of way property is up for grabs. It cuts down on the highway dept having to remove it. Anything that falls on private property becomes that property owner's still. In our rural area, the trouble can be finding who owns what property. The Assessors have maps, and that can be time consuming, but it can keep scroungers out of trouble by finding out and asking. But running the roads can get a scrounger some good wood fast after one of these storms, just by helping remove the wood at roadside. And the trees are still falling! Many are hung up into other trees and the gravity of the situation is they're falling a week later. Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk
I went by this morning and the rest of the wood is gone. All the brush was thrown to the sides of the driveway. Oh well, at least I got the two loads I did get.
It’s nice your town thought enough about the matter to formulate an answer. That doesn’t happen often.
In a town that many residents used to heat their homes heavily with wood, it helped to have a policy. That changes from time to time. During the oil shortages in the 1970s people were keeping close watch on tree cuttings and the 3 day rule. The roadsides never had wood along them for 4 days. Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk
I drove by the other scrounge site with the Red Oak, which is about 3 miles from my house in the opposite direction from the Ash site. I think I’ll stop and try to talk to the owner this weekend. I’d say there’s probably 1.5 cords there, maybe even 2.
