That last pic is all the ash I cut a few weeks back plus all the mulberry that came with the place PLUS (at the bottom) all the ash Mr. Cottonwood and I cut up the day I got freakin’ sick. The driest stuff is on top. The stack measures 6’ tall by 7’8” wide. Most of it is cut into 12-13” splits so we can load N-S in the insert.
…which made lots of room here: …for all the red oak you see on the ground in the log splittin’ photo on up there ⬆️. It won’t be ready to burn til 2025, I’ll ween.
The observant, er, observer may note the totes are in full effect with next year’s shoulder season chunks, punks, and uglies here:
Thanks y’all and good night from a very warm home in Rock County, WI. Ash loaded and providing quite a show. When we were down with the crud, neither The Wife nor I had any energy to spare for firewood stuff; we cheated and ran the “we’ll pay for it next month” heat. It has been SO nice to get back to honest to God warmth in this home. We salute all of you for your thoughts, knowledge, and inspiration. Good night!
Four days later… …and the mulberry is no more. We don’t think we got the FULL mulberry experience since it was sitting around on the ground for so long; may have lost some BTU’s. Some pieces were pretty light and others had a little layer of punk on the outside. Anyways luckily it hasn’t been real cold here in south central WI, so we kind of have an extended shoulder season. Perfect for burning off this stuff that was laying around.
The last of the mulberry, save some randoms, chunks, and whatnot. We have three pretty sick looking mulberry trees on the east edge of the property, so maybe we’ll have some more/“real” mulberry in a few years. For now, those trees feed a lot of wildlife and they can stay where they’re at.
As an experiment, I loaded her up at about 1100 with ash and boy was there a difference in BTU’s from the mulberry. The room got up to 85 degrees by 1215. As of now (1505) we still have some nice coals and the room is pleasantly warm. Anyways, that ash will be nice for a colder day, but it’s 45 out there right now, so we’ll hold off on the ash or I’ll just have to load a little less - but I don’t really like to do that.
Meanwhile, you should all be so lucky as to have a Mr. Cottonwood in your lives. He knows we’re in need of ready to burn wood, and provides free of charge. An excellent friend. Anyways, he has these cherry rounds (the little stack on the right) set aside for us - and he says they should already be dry enough to burn. I’ll verify with the MM. Hoping to pick it up tomorrow. It’s rainy and cruddy and muddy today, so nope. ps The rounds are covered now, so they’ll stay dry for us. Thanks again, Mr. Cottonwood.
