Been a fairly mild beginning to the burn season so far - burned a good deal of pine early, and I have about 2-3 days of the shoulder season red maple, cherry, and white birch left before I hit the mid-winter stacks. I think I'm ahead from previous years at this point. Will start hauling in the 'good' wood from the barn in a couple days - about 3 cord of mainly red oak, with white ash, yellow, and black birch. Then back to the red maple and pine for the spring shoulder season. So far so good! Hope all of your stacks are holding up as well! Cheers!
I was looking at Irownwood, MI. Their forecast is for a high temperature of 1 degree tomorrow. We are supposed to get colder each day for the next several days. It was 29 here today and beautiful out in the woods.
Forecast for you is low to mid teens nights & high 20°s daytime. Time for the good wood ? Should freeze up the ground & make it a bit easier to get around in the woods.
Yes sir it has been a mild one so far, especially compared to last year. Like Sav said dippin on the thermo next couple days here too.
I only have a half a cord of maple. I'm saving it for warm/cool days in Spring - plus the bark isn't quite peeling off yet like I'd like even though it's been cut and split a year. I burned oil on the warm stretches. I couldn't see burning the oak with the windows open, especially with oil down to $2.39 - not that that is cheap but I figure the oak has a value when oil is closer to $4 and I have a tough time with that going out the window.
Yep, temps supposed to drop pretty good this week - certainly will be nice to have the better wood ready to go. Already a lot colder tonight, but, I hope you are right and the ground finally gets a good freeze - went a cut a load of yellow birch and red oak today and the woods trail was pretty sloppy - don't want to make the ruts any worse! Cheers!
Down to 10* with a low of 0* or so tonight. Tomorrow calling for a high of 7* and -9 tomorrow night. Buuuurrrrrrrrr. Starting to use some oak, locust and hedge posts to keep the furnace down to a minimum. If only I had gotten that IS this year.
I haven't even touched my "Hardwood" . I'm still on shoulder crap and uglies. Thats OK though, I can't wait to burn up all this hackberry I got, I can't stand the smell of it! I got two cord of fat Cherry and two of Maple all ready for the cold months, "when ever that happens"
That was a nice stretch holding it down with shoulder wood. Can't say I've seen to many guys talking about their shoulder wood anymore. Typically my shoulder stash only gets me into mid November.
Sitting at 22º here and supposed to be mid to low teens for the next 3 nights. I'll be burning mostly ash, red and white oak and a little elm. This is when the stove really burns nice, the brisk air outside just makes everything burn better in the Buck. 12 hours today and I had to rake a big pile of red coals forward and open the air for an hour so I could load again.
I think God has had some sympathy for us here in the mid Atlantic area. I'm in charge of one of the snow plow teams here on our base and we had our A$$ handed to us, plowing snow on three separate occasions by this time last year. I had already went through a cord and 1/2 this time last year, I just got through a 1/2 so far and it's my junk/shoulder stuff.
I can't believe how little wood I've burned this year. I doubt I've burned 1.5 cord yet. I have a feeling Jan and Feb will be rough though.
