That is a great score, my friend. Those pictures really show the challenge of what you were up against...to you, brother. Amazing work. I sure couldn't have done it, maybe with a chainsaw winch...well done, sir.
Thank you I may not do high volume but I earn my keep from time to time, picking away at the stuff nobody else wants
I’m no good at the guessing game, but I’ve got to be around a half to 2/3 cord scrounged from the past week or so. Still have some splitting to do; maybe this weekend. This is all here temporarily, as once I burn through some more inventory I’ll have space to stack it for good. Pictured is the Saul’s Oak, ash, a little red oak, 5 splits of black birch, 6 splits of noodled elm, and a bunch of sassafras between yesterday and Saturday. I’ll probably stack it all together before giving it the 3 year treatment under cover.
Some good scrounging going on there. Is the tree fort ready to be repurposed or will you stack some wood up there? Good air flow i imagine!
With it fresh cut it's certainly putting out a strong aroma. It's... a little spicy-citrusy (sassafras) a little vanilla-y (white x chestnut oak) a little pungent (red oak) a little minty (black birch) and a little "ashy". The handful of elm splits doesn't smell like sewer surprisingly. All in all a good combination to have
My 12 year old and I got outside this afternoon and hand split the rest of the oak, the sassafras, and halved most of the ash rounds. Perfect weather for it today. I swung the monster maul and gave him the much lighter big box orange maul. He thoroughly enjoyed himself taking out his earthly frustrations on some dead ash rounds. We’ll use the splitter for the rest tomorrow.
Operation: Ash Salvage continues. I had been eyeing this one on and off all summer. It had been dead for a few years, then on the ground since 2020. I wasn’t sure if it would be worth cutting so it wasn’t high priority. Today I performed a test cut and the chips looked decent, and I felt some resistance on the saw. Not terrible, a little better than half bad. Half bad is still half good in my book, so I bucked 6 rounds this afternoon. There’s plenty more there to pick away at as time permits. Being in the latter stages of EAB infestation here, I figure it’s best to salvage whatever I can while it’s still worth getting.
I was eyeballing a past its prime oak log today. I can’t sell it, but it will burn just fine in my stoves. It will get hauled home tomorrow I think all my ash is gone.
I got some ash that fell right by my work a couple months ago im about to cut it up don’t know why i havent yet just busy with lots of other wood cutting i say split it and burn it dont even bother stacking ! Thats why i love scrounging this time of the year other than the darkness
I ran the first round through the splitter and began cursing myself out for not knowing what good wood looks like. The next 5 were much, much better though. They still had that typical ash smell, although I could smell the fermentation getting in there ( I may have sniffed 80% of the splits I made ) The grain in the center was still stringy, and now I’m pumped to cut more this afternoon
yeah a year ago when i scored that huge dead ash i was foaming at the mouth with the quality of the wood. Have you gone from oak mania to ash Mania?
To be fair I think it’s both Oak because it’s great firewood and dead/down is my preferred method of scoring it, and ash because it’s quickly fading into the history books and I want to enjoy what remnants are left around here. The ash will get stacked with the oak for the 3 year treatment, so I’ll still have some years down the road.
8 more main trunk rounds from here today. I cut a few of the smaller limb sections which all turned out to be junk. Not too surprising unfortunately. On to the next one.
Nice work! I’ve been surprised by standing dead ash that has fallen in the wind. You can actually salvage a decent amount despite the rot. Shame these trees are disappearing.
On the ones that have been dead a while, the tops and base seem to go bad fast, but there's usually some decent wood to be had from the mid section of the trunk. Indeed it's sad to see them all go. I have a few young white ash saplings at home that I monitor. I hope they live long enough to produce seeds, before the beetles inevitably cut their lives short.
Agreed! The mid sections hold up remarkably well. Hope those saplings hold up! It would be great to see the Ash trees thrive again.
