I'm not that great at Wood ID and I have never had any willow. I contacted a guy that has 12 truck loads of free firewood, he said he is not sure what it is. The only wood that I just do not want is willow. Hopefully it will be something that I am familiar with and well be able to ID it
You know how a weeping willow looks in the wintertime, all covered with the droopy twigs? Upright willows look very much the same, except they just aren't as droopy. I think the upright ones look a lot like Black Locust, with deeply furrowed bark, but the crown will be covered with those orangish twigs. If it's all cut up already, see if there are a lot of burls - willows tend to get lots of them.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bar...HZgwT0x4H4BA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1408&bih=620 If you don't find your answer today, let me know and I'll go back by the creek and get some pictures. But the above should give you a good idea of what the bark looks like. It is usually quite deep furrowed.
Okay, right after posting the above, I just said to heck with it and jumped, well, mounted at least, the atv and headed to the creek to get a couple pictures. I normally resize the pictures but did not here so you can see the bark best. They are thumbnails so if you click on the picture it will go to full size. Also my apology for not being able to get better angles so it was tough taking against a gray sky but I think you can ID okay with these.
The way I can tell if it's willow or not is if there is 12 truckloads and it's free. Oh and the guy says he doesn't know what kind of wood it is. I cut a bunch of willow down in the bush last fall because it was in the way for my logging trail. Of course I burnt it and it works fine for shoulder wood, just keep it close to the owb or stove. Keep it under cover too if possible. I burned tons of poplar too and am burning poplar right now and will burn it all summer long for domestic hot water. If you have 5 $100 bills in your pocket do you throw away the $5 bills because they are taking up space? Nope you take those $5 bills and go to the strip joint where you will get some value out of them.
Notice how the pictures that Sav sent that the trees are irregular. That is the most consistent thing about them. They are very messy. They grow like weeds in damp places. Always a lot of broken limbs on them. There is a man down the road who has two weeping willows on his lawn. They look just terrible.
The only thing about Willow is that where you find one there is a good water source. They need between 75 and 100 gallons of water a day to stay alive and this usually means an underground stream or man made culvert that they are feeding from. So when you dig near a Willow you will find a high water table, this I have learned through experience.
Only thing they are good for is erosion control or a cheap fast growing wind break, ground up fine and compressed into pellets or logs works well also although conifers will give hotter pellets or logs- mixed together works well also. Linden -Willows- cotton wood = fire pit items or owb for summer. To me just is not worth the expended energy for return. Heck its even hard to give away cut and split around here.
Can you get rid of some of it as campfire bundles or wood? We use poplar as firepit wood because it's burns away fast so no sudden flare ups in the middle of the night. Or sell it split real small for kindling. Wood for pallets? Gotta be some use for it. Looks like you might be sitting on a gold mine? Cottonwood Crotch Vessel Sink Description: A vessel sink made from a cottonwood crotch. A beautiful single piece of cottonwood used to create this one of a kind vessel sink . Made from recycled cottonwood, Gransee Designs strives to create all of our products from renewable wood sources. Species: Cottonwood crotch Color: natural Outside diameter: 16 1/4 inches Height: 6 1/8 inches Quantity Old Price: $899.00 Price: $899.00 You save: $0.00 - See more at: http://www.granseedesigns.com/products-page/vessel-sinks/#sthash.2PoEaz7y.dpuf
