Found this one while I was out cutting trail. Hope there’s a lot to salvage. Sad part is those initials carved in the stump are mine and the wife’s, put there Thanksgiving 1992. I have direction to Harvest that section at minimum for salvage.
Firewood comes and goes, but that section where you and your wife made your mark over 30 years ago… preserve that at all costs
I bet you’ll get some good splits from that! I’ve salvaged a few rotted Beech over the years. Definitely save that section! That’s a great memory to have preserved!
There is something similar carved into a beech tree on my property in Maine. I haven’t looked at it in 5 or more years. I’m going to make it a point next time I’m there. beech and black birch are my favorite wood to burn tho they a few and far between.
Sad to see it go Mike. Save the initialed part of course. I have to ask though...which saw did you use to carve the initials?
Hopefully you find plenty of good solid wood. Its been my experience that beech rots quicker than many others in log form
Wow! Should be lots of good heat with that sucker. If it were me, I'd cut out the initials section and have it incased in clear epoxy.
Reading the posts brought back memories. One year while hunting in the UP I ran across a beech tree with some carving. E S shot bear 1947. That man's daughter-in-law has the section of that tree today! Great memory. I also had a huge beech on our property that died several years ago. There was a carving made by my BIL back in the early 50's. Beech made good carving trees.
Don’t save it—heat things up by burning it in the fireplace on Valentine’s Day and make a new memory!
Another victim of beech bark disease. It's a two part assault on the tree. First there is an insect that bores through the bark. After it's gone, beech bark (as shown in the heart and initials) can't heal itself and allows a fungus to attach the tree. This causes scaling which eventually girdles the tree and they blow over 10-15 feet up from the ground. It's not only big trees either. We have them start like this from 6" or so and up. It's just luck of the draw how long they make it before they get hit. It is great wood that dries super fast though so I never complain as I grab them from the lot!
Even smaller than that. Trying to figure out how to get all the sick Beech out of these woods before they bust off and rot. Maybe if I took a year off . Oddly enough, some of the older trees look healthy bark wise, but are wanting to fall over for other reasons. The real PITA is that the small diseased trees are not a good return on investment when it comes to making them into firewood.
