The Ideal steel is loving white pine

This is my first year using pine. I love it. It lights off quick and makes good long heat. I'm not sure how much of that is the stove, but it really is a great firewood. This is coming from somebody with a 3 year supply of locust, oak, ash, cherry, hackberry, and mulberry.

The pine is a lot more work to process and doesn't stack as nice, but I would love to have more of it. The drying time is the best part.

My question is what are the pine/spruce variety to look for or avoid in Pennsylvania? Any that are easier to process than white pine? I split by hand.

 

If you like white pine, you'll love red pine. It has a lot more btu's to out than white pine, and it splits pretty easily by axe.

 

Can anybody identify this stuff?

 

Some sort of fir.

 

I would say norway spruce.

Just remember in general spruce=sharp. Grab the needles bare handed, if they are sharp it is spruce.
Norway spruce hangs in green sausage like looking segments which looks to be what you have going on in the third picture.

 

I would agree with Paul bunion 100%. It resembles some Norway Spruce I'm working on now. Not easy to split due to the amount of knots, but noodles fairly well. The first one I did I ended up noodling about 2/5ths of it. The rest I split by hand (because I enjoy it) The next one I will hopefully fell this week, if the winds and weather cooperate.

 

If your wondering about the bark, here's a better picture for that. (some have seen my pictures before since I posted them in another thread)
Spring cleanup | Page 4 | Firewood Hoarders Club

 

Looks like Norway spruce to me. The drooping small branches on the whole tree shot gave it away.

 

I found that out last night. I was getting beat up until I switched to the maul.

 

I agree with those who said Norway Spruce. My first thought was White Spruce, but I don't know if it grows down it Pennsylvania.

 

My vote goes to Norway. Yeah yeah.