When I moved here 15 years ago, there was a standing bark-less dead White oak about 100 feet behind the house. I never cut it for firewood cause it had all kinds of cavities in it at the top, so I let it stand for wildlife habitat. I called it my den tree and I even put a Peterson style nest box on it. I was looking at it last week and told my lady that I am going to remove the box as that tree might fall over. Being an expert at procrastinating, of course, 3 days later it fell over perfectly on top of the box and bulls-eyed a pole I had between 2 trees where a spool feeder used to be. It’s fair game for firewood now and took advantage of this nice Saturday, so it is all CSS on the front porch. It was solid and dry except for the top which was hollow, but outer wood was good.
Guess it pays to procrastinate! Surprised its that dry. I have a fallen dead white oak I bucked up back in December. A lot of the heartwood was on the punjy side so I left it for now. I have a customer that buys wood for their outdoor fireplace so it will more than likely get split and stacked for them. I have been procrastinating carrying the rounds out of the woods to split even though its 50' behind my wood shed!
Can't believe dead trees last that long without a ton of rot for you guys. They sure don't around here. Not even close. In fact, they will fall long before that.
This tree was a little unusual for being dead that long, I mean it was solid the entire diameter except for a few spots of 1/4" of punky stuff on the north side of tree. Bark must have come off when it died, I've seen standing dead bark-less oak like that before "gray skeletons" many years after dying still solid until they fall over. Bark on, they are punky and go quick.
I've had a red oak last that long. All the sapwood was gone but the remaining heartwood was hard as a rock. Had to turn the oiler on the saw to max as the chain got to smoking. Was reallly good firewood.
Great minds think alike, this is first time first time I had it hooked to the SXS ,, immediately realized I needed to take ball off and reverse hitch.
