Poplars are a great fire wood for shoulder season like now.. Its a high of 38 today. I want some heat but not big heat. All species have a use
Absolutely. It's in the 30's today, we're just getting missed by a big snowstorm. Nothing here, just cold. My lab, Badger, is LOVING the fire today. Spalted maple and cherry. He's literally 1.5 feet away from the stove, turning/ flipping over every few minutes to get thoroughly chooched. I've actually been contemplating purposely cutting a couple poplars for shoulder season wood. I've got more basswood I could gather too. I'll probably get both the rest of that basswood and the poplar. It just seems that with winters being how they've been, that I end up using all of my shoulder season wood.
Same here.... I’ve used literally all but a few chunks of SS wood for this and next season (as I had it planned). Not cold enough to really justify the heavy hitters, save 1-3 nights of what winter should have been. Of course, I still have plenty of SS wood, but it’s in 2019-2020 rotation. Guess I gotta pull some into next heating season.
For us up further north, I save the heavy hitters for at night, or extra cold times, and use the SS so that the coal bed gets burnt down during the days.
Being serious for a moment ... I'm actually kind of fond of poplar. It's the first wood I cut when I got a chainsaw and it's so easy to cut and split that I was able to build confidence. Someone had already dropped some shelter-belt trees and they were free to buck and remove so the price was right as well. They make great kindling because (as long as it's dry) you can use bigger pieces since it catches so readily, which means fewer pieces/less prep time, and it's ideal for my favourite "top down" method,demonstrated below (starting at about 1:10). I don't have that brand, but the method works great in my small wood burner as well.
