Yep, I burn the branches in the outside fire pit. They burn incredibly well. Out family room where we put our tree has a vaulted ceiling. I can put a pretty tall tree in there, especially if we didn't turn the ceiling fan on. Lol. I didn't buy any tree shorter than me. I typically like 8 footers. Now at the old house I grew up in, we had 24' ceiling in the room that we'd put the tree. Many forest trees the up being Christmas trees during deer hunting season. One year e we had one that was all of 22 feet. It was a very Christmas Vacation like tree .
No, on our last trip, a Hood River County Sheriffs Deputy stopped to check our permits, he was actually very nice, he wanted to see if our permit listed power equipment shut down times by IFPL rating (Industrial Fire Protection Level) He thought that it was IFPL 3, which would dictate an 11:00 am shut down of power equipment When we left home we passed the Zigzag Ranger Station, and the road sign listed an IFPL of 2 for all units 1,2,3, 4, where we were cutting is in unit 3. As you can see from the pictures, it is in a large graveled area, not out in the weeds cutting random blowdown, where dry grass and other ground cover could be a fire hazard. He actually commented on that and told us to go ahead and keep cutting, he even gave me his business card, to “Throw him under the bus “ if anyone else gave us any trouble This log deck was from trees removed to build a road into the Dog River watershed, but he didn’t say what the purpose of the road was for. He did say that there would be another log deck to open up to cutters, once this one was gone Doug
Well, we made trip #4, to our log pile 1 1/8 cord, we got an earliER start, but still not as Early as we wanted. We did have time to split the whole load at the log deck, but the sun was playing hide and seek, and Wining by the time we got back to the highway Fortunately, we keep crossing paths with the Good government employees, we had our wood cutting permit checked again today, that’s two trips in a row, I don’t recall ever having my permit checked before Today it was a National Forest Circus employee, and he said that these trees were cut building a new cell tower. The county Sheriff that checked our permit last trip said that they were cut building a road, hmm Maybe the road was going to the new cell tower? It sure will be nice to have cell service out where we cut, that could make a real difference, in a bad situation Doug
Douglas fir is great and so is Hemlock. Hemlock just takes longer to dry. What an awesome place to process firewood!
One of the biggest reasons I like to split in the woods is to reduce the mess at home, we live in a rural neighborhood, it has the Suburban feel, but further from the “Urban” part of suburban than most suburbs. The down side is that our lot is only Point 17 acres, not 17 acres. It also reduces handling, we toss directly from the splitter into the trailer, and at home, I can toss it from the trailer to the woodshed This shed has four racks/rows each approximately 8’ high and 12’ long, so stacking 16” splits, each rack is just shy of a cord because of the corner overlap. This shed was originally “Intended” to be “Temporary”, I forget how many years ago The last load was all Douglas Fir, this load was mainly a mix of D Fir and White Fir, and possibly a little bit of Hemlock. With the foliage and much of the bark gone, I have to best guess it by color and scent of the wood. D Fir has it’s own scent and usually has a darker center, while White Fir is usually consistent across the round in color, and very little scent. Hemlock has a pretty consistent color, and it’s own “Scent” that while not Unpleasant, isn’t as pleasant as D Fir or the Christmas Tree scent of Noble Fir Doug
Unfortunately, the pic above of the Empty trailer backed up to the woodshed is from unloading from trip #3, the load from trip #4 is still in the trailer parked in front of the house Doug
How ready is a back ever for that? But getting old, while it beats the alternative, does suck in many ways The back definitely doesn’t like all the bending over. One of the downsides of the 6x12 trailer is that I can only stack the wood 2’ when pulling it with the Jeep, even that really is more weight than I should haul behind it Doug
The log deck was seriously depleted today, we went for load #5. In the Mt Hood NF, we’re allowed 6 cords per HOUSEHOLD, not person, we’ve been tagging each load as a cord, so we have 2 more Half Cord Tags left, and we’ve been checked twice now, which is twice more than I have ever been checked before, so we can get one more full cord load, and I don’t think that I would risk “Poaching” a load. If we do grab one more load, I don’t know where I will put it, I really don’t have room for what we got today, but get while the gettin is Good. I will probably have to build a couple “Temporary Racks” hmm, that sounds strangely like how I ended up with my 4 cords shed Today’s load was another “Dog’s Breakfast” load, I think that it was mostly Hemlock and White Fir, but I know there was some Douglas Fir in there, and one log that definitely had the Christmas Tree scent of Noble Fir again. I committed a serious Sin, at least to other Hoarders anyway, I ended up leaving probably about a quarter cord of rounds behind , but the unit we were in was at IFPL ( Industrial Fire Protection Level) 2, which means that all power saws have to be shut down by 1:00 pm, then you have to stay for at least an hour, for a Fire Watch. So I had to make sure that I cut enough to fill our two tags, and not short change ourselves. We got right at half split to stove size, but ended up with about half split into quarters or smaller, on 26”+ diameter rounds, and unfortunately also brought more bark home than we like, but we were playing Hide & Seek with the Sun again today, Ol Sol was winning, but we did beat him out of the woods and to the hwy before the game ended with Sol winning The Wife did put in a little throttle time on her 445 Husky today Overall, we had another enjoyable trip into the woods, and brought home some pretty good firewood, so no complaints, other than having the whole area to ourselves, we couldn’t help but mention how the GrandDogter would have Loved It , all kinds of room to roam, and no one else around. Hoping to fill out our firewood permit with one more load, but I still have to figger out where to stack what we have now, and for the good news, many of you may remember, that during a DOT Physical in July, that turned my world Upside Down, Backwards and Inside Out. I finally got my 30 days on my CPAP ( the Viet Cong, wouldn’t even use those to torture our captured soldiers) and had my compliance appointment on Monday, I passed my new DOT Physical on Tuesday, and now I have to go back to DMV and get the CDL reinstated on my drivers license, so with any Luck , I will be back to work next week, so if we don’t get that last load on Sunday, we may not be able to get it, but after having been off work since August 14th, I am looking forward to getting back to earning a living Doug
