WinonaRail's Wood Yard

Best answer of the day!!

 

PURE GENIUS!

Id have Ms. buZZsaw help me making firewood, but would need to have 911 on speed dial!

 

Here's a shot of my new standard for bundle wood. It's split small, about 70% bark free. There probably won't be any bark left by the time I make the bundles.

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that looks really nice...

 

Nice! I make smaller splits for bundles too. At least i try to. I find myself still splitting when im assembling bundles. What species will you use? I mix shoulder season with better hardwoods.

 

Thank you!!

 

It's really quite simple buZZsaw BRAD. I use whatever I have on hand. Lately, that's been maple, elm, walnut and cottonwood. I don't have the luxury of "selecting" particular species as my log inventory is fairly small at any given point in time. However, if I get lucky and score some oak, cherry or locust, I'll separate those out and charge a premium.

 

I've been absent from posting updates here so it's time to catch up a bit. My roadside stand has seen better than expected sales over the winter. In addition, I've had some people asking for face cords, which I don't advertise. Those 2 scenarios had me running out of seasoned wood before Christmas. I decided to search for seasoned wood to buy. That was quite an experience. I learned that nobody in my area either knows how to measure quantities of wood or they simply don't care. I ended up with a few truckloads that were close to a 1/4 cord. I was told I was getting a face cord. At that point, beggars couldn't be choosers so I took what I could get. I also found a couple guys that would bring rounds from either dead standing trees (mostly ash) or from trees that were already down. That was a better option as the wood was partially seasoned (dried within weeks) and I could split to the sizes I wanted. I ended up buying a little shy of 3 cords total. The good news is that I now have sufficient inventory that I don't need to buy anything. More to come.

 

Glad you found a better option to get you through the winter sales...

 

Here's the current status of the wood yard. This is my receiving area where tree services dump logs and wood chips.
I started with some pine that mostly got pushed to the back. Then a really big oak showed up. Finally, a huge dump trailer of dead ash rolled in. My work is cut out for me!

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Had a new customer who bought 3 cords that stacked out at 1.5 and really crappy wood too. He ended up buying a cord from me and texted me later to say its the only time he's got an honest cord and dry. So its a common occurrence IME.

Establish regular customers and serve them well. Im fortunate (i think) that i dont sellout and sort of do it on purpose as some regulars call for more wood and i dont want to be out. Doing year round bundles i have to keep a revolving supply of dry wood for that as well. Hope you have enough for next Winter!

 

Ugh, lots of big stuff there!

 

It's been a gradual growth process for the business, which is what I wanted. I knew I didn't have a lot of inventory, and I wanted my customers to be able to depend on me. Now I have finished inventory for several months and 4-5 cords of rounds/logs to process. It's working well.

 

Indeed! I'm debating between trying to break them up with the splitter or making a Fiskars purchase. We'll see how it goes.

 

Pictures of the current state of my roadside stand.

First picture shows my standard firewood bundles, $20 loose stacks, kindling bags, Swedish chimneys and cherry and maple smoker wood bundles.

The second picture shows mini bundles and $40 loose stack along with a tote of shorts and uglies. I'll probably add 1/4 cord stacked in IBC totes fairly soon.

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Really nice setup there.

Our place is a quarter mile off the road and we have no frontage otherwise i might try a stand.

 

My driveway is 250' back to the house so there is plenty of room to park. The yard along the road is open so you can see the stand and sign. Overall, it's working really well. I'm in the country but the road gets a pretty good amount of traffic.

 

It's past time for an update so here goes. I've had a few good scores from tree services lately. I ended up with 2.5+ cords from a huge walnut and just under a cord of oak in the last couple weeks. The oak is mostly 24"-36" logs so the majority will be noodled. My father-in-law decided to repo his skid steer to work on some projects so I'm going back to how I did things when I was just getting started. All my processing had been done in the back of my property but I don't have an efficient way to move wood now so it will be done on the driveway and stacked next to it for ease of loading and moving to the roadside stand.

Sales were pretty brisk over the holiday week, amounting to $265 at the stand. It ate up a good bit of my seasoned inventory. I'll have a good bit of wood ready for this winter but it may be slim pickings in the fall. I had been scrounging downed trees from a neighbor which resulted in quick drying wood. I transported the wood with the skid steer because the trails aren't wide enough to accommodate a truck.

I bought a bed unloader from Harbor Freight yesterday with a 25% off coupon. I'll be stacking wood by hand in the bed for deliveries so this will make unloading easier. I have a couple orders that need to go out this week.

 

Any theft at the roadside stand?