The weather is still on the cool side and forecast was for mostly cloudy today. I'm not looking forward to cutting in the heat. I guess any excuse to cut will work, Huh? GF slept in so i went to cut a load. I get to the HH and the sun comes out. Bucking, quartering and loading in full sun...GROAN! My blood is still thick! At least it wasnt humid, although i did work up a good sweat. This load all barkless red oak. Logs were very wet despite being barkless and off the ground. The rounds had to be quartered with the Fiskars while on the pile. Something ive never done before. These werent as gritty as the other big uns from take 4. 28" bar on 460. Almost stepped on this wooly bear caterpillar. Never seen one missing the black at one end. If the old wives tale is true, a very mild Winter next year. Maybe i should stop hoarding wood then?...NEVER! I love nature. One of the things about cutting wood alone! wood was so saturated it left a rust stain where the fiskars made impact Heavy load. Sunk into the dirt a couple inches even though its not muddy in my processing area. quarters from the load awaiting the Fiskars this week!
Man what great looking wood. In that first pic, if you squint your eyes and think about watermelon, the quartered wood kind of looks like watermelon. I wonder how it tastes.
I was shocked at how wet the wood was. Was short a few pieces and bucked another couple to fill out the load hence the very wet end. I forgot to load one pic...thanks for reminding me
Love the red oak pics. Clean, perfect looking splits. Looks like u have another 12.4 loads to go. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Beautiful oak! I think it dries faster when dead than when cut alive. Did you stand them up to quarter them on top of the pile? Tricky footing there.
Some of the trees were standing stalks that had been topped a couple years back Midwinter so the building could be seen from the road. (There is a winding driveway over a river in a ravine so trees on roadside steep embankment obscuring the view) Several good sized oaks as seen in the pics. The wood was what seemed like "wetter than green" when i quartered them. I really thought they'd be a bit drier. Yes i did quarter them on top of the pile. Footing was good and wood split easily. I tried to roll one down with pickaroon, but logistically it was very difficult. A couple off the end, but that was tough too. The rounds split with 2-3 whacks and quartered with 1-2. Im still undecided whether i prefer cut and load 16" and less rounds or the big uns. These are nice as there is no knots!!! The big uns from load 4 were on the gnarly side. Several had to be noodled.
