This has been a good year for scrounges! Earlier I posted my “beside the highway” scrounge but there has been more- all oak- which is what I prefer. In February our hunting lease underwent some road improvements that resulted in 2 trees down easy to access. I hauled like 3-4 pick up bed loads out of there. I don’t have the heavy equipment to process it in my “wood yard” so it’s cut, split into manageable pieces , load, haul, and unload. Final processing occurs at the homestead. I then was able to score the highway oak and got some nice firewood from that. Well, I was positioning some stands for the upcoming deer season and noticed another fallen oak on our property line 5 minutes from home. Returned with saw and cut a load of limbs . Yesterday I got the tractor involved and cut trunk free from stump and pulled it out in open and processed that. The trunk rounds yielded around 10-14 stove wood chunks each. It was warm but I just can’t unsee a fallen oak especially easily accessible!
I would call that a success too. Hard to pass up easy scores like that. How much wood do you burn in an average Winter down there?
Been a great year for me too. BL, MB, cherry and CO. Did you noodle the trunk or have hydro help to get it to the splitter?
Last two years between 1-2 chords. The Drolet has cut wood consumption and with our usually mild average winter temp having a “fire” is usually for the fact wood heat just feels better. The wife and I definitely several times last year had more fire than we needed but I love to go to sleep and next morning come back to the front of home and feel that big heat change when you walk in…..We made the decision years ago for her to stay home so it has been an experiment (albeit a good one) o the delicate balance of warm vs too warm….
Not super up to date on the correct terms so forgive me. I cut, split, load and unload manually. The splits in the field are normally to the point where they can be loaded/unloaded without injury. Final splitting takes place at home. As I said earlier I have been allowing at least one year for the oak to dry with good results according to a moisture meter. Maybe one year is working bc I split it on down smaller early in the drying? Since wood scrounging has been good I don’t bother with “uglies” too much- I generally cut off above and below the knots. Splitting is 99% with a Fiskars splitting ax. I occasionally get wedge and hammer involved but if it bounces the wedge once or twice it gets rolled to the side. It frankly is too hot here now to expend energy on one knotty piece when I have a dozen more (yielding a dozen or more stove chunks each) lined up to load… I grew up watching my Grandad process “ uglies” manually well into his 6th decade. I have the know how and the ability but rt now I don’t see the need…. Knotty pieces luv u a long time both in process and burn. Got long winded but I hope I answered your question.
You did. When I get large rounds, sometimes I use the saw to get them to manageable size, cutting w/ the grain like this pic (called noodling); And yes, I'm sure the smaller you split any wood the quicker the potential to dry out.
