Who has apple wood yet yearns for poplar? Thats like having a steak at Peter Lugers and wishing you had a Big Mac....Who does this???
I have lots and lots of apple. It's a problem, being long on the good stuff, and short on the low BTU, fast-drying shoulder season wood. I have visions of the whole poplar cut into 20" rounds I spurned at the dump last fall.
That's about all I can do today. That pin oak or whatever it is was nasty. I cut it short on purpose, which helped, but still. I'll sleep like a baby tonight.
You done did good. That's looks exactly like the pin oak tree wood that I scored last year. It was a whole tree with about a 28 inch diameter at waist height that my neighbor was having cut down. I thought it was an easy score when he asked me if I wanted it then he would tell the tree guy to leave it all for me after cutting. I've split many oaks and find them to be quite cooperative, but right from the start the trunk slabs had to be split on site just so I could make pieces light enough to load my car and take off the property. Well that's when I realized not all oaks were built the same and this one was a rock hard beast. That on-site splitting job alone took well into the afternoon with three wedges and a pry bar ...and I was only quartering! So I figured I would let it all sit stacked on my property to dry out for some months and then have another go at it hoping the seasoning would at least wear its resistance down. To my surprise it hardly made a difference and so I decided to split it all little by little mixing in a few pieces when maul splitting other rounds. I just finished splitting the last of it a week ago and I'm very glad not to have anymore of it. And yes, just like you did I had to re-cut the rounds into 10 inch lengths and now I have a bunch of odd shaped shorts in my stacks. This stuff better reward me with btu's!
Like you, I thought I scored big time when I picked it up in the spring. I couldn't even put a ding on it. I let it sit all summer, and that did help. I got some one-strike splits, but it was mostly sledge and wedge.
Nice! Best car hoard in quite a while. Maybe the wind broke it a couple days ago. There's some poplar at the bottom too. The loader may push it so I can get it, or lift it onto the big pile totally out of reach.
I guess this is how I'll spend my day. I went back for the poplar, never even looked for it. I would have filled up, but another scrounger showed up, and I let him have what was left.
Wow a real Whitman's sampler! Great score and even got some of that poplar you've been after, but I know you want those big poles. Would you believe I never scored any birch in all my scrounging? Maybe an odd piece here or there, but you got a nice bunch for yourself there.
I think it was cleanup day for the city crew. They collect all kinds of miscellaneous limbs and whatnot in their dump truck, and bring it to the dump. Usually it's twigs and branches, not whole trees. And not multiple dump loads. I'm just glad I wasn't babysitting today!
Those tongs you ordered, will certainly help grabbing and dragging logs out of the piles. It'll take a little bit to get the hinge working right for you, but nothe a big deal. Just need to get used to it. After about 15mins of use, I was wishing I had gotten them years ago.
I have to tug, and my tugging muscles, whichever they are, are pretty inadequate. How is the oak splitting going? There was nada at the dump the next day.
