Got a nice head's up from the power line crew that the property owners where they were dropping a couple decent Norway maples wanted the trees cleared ASAP. Drove down this morning and loaded the truck up with smaller stuff and then took the tractor and trailer back (just shy of a mile away). Detached the trailer, used the grapple to load and then hooked up and drove away. Great SS wood and can't beat the price!
Thanks. I keep planning to stop scrounging and start splitting however this was too good to pass up. The trailer is about maxed out so it was a slooooow drive home. Had the A/C going and was sipping on some iced tea so just took my time and chuckled at the aggravated tourists who had to go around me (and yes, the tractor is registered for the road).
It works great. The only issue I had was that Kiotis have plastic radiators and the factory brushguard doesn't offer much protection from a stray branch when picking up grapple loads of brush. I just had a steel grill guard insert made and will be installing it shortly to protect that weak spot (they really should do that from the factory). Otherwise, it works great.
Nice grab there sir! Wish i could get more Norway. I like it better than red maple. Common urban tree, but seldom in the rural areas.
This will be the first Norway maple I think I've ever burned. Burned a lot of red and silver maple over the years so looking forward to seeing how this stacks up (no pun intended).
Splits easily. On the brittle side. Same drying time as red maple with better btu's. Comparable to ash IMO!
Thanks for the info. I couldn't find Norway maple on any BTU chart but like you said earlier, it appears comparable to ash. The only thing I see I don't like about the Norway maple is that there are going to be a LOT of uglies once these two trees are processed. Granted all the branches are why people like them in front of their homes, however I can see they are going to be a PITA to process. Still, it all burns and they were free.
Its not on the BTU chart here either. Norway was a rather common scrounge for me a few years back. It was sectioned down and left roadside to be taken and id grab the easier, smaller stuff. I now wont hesitate to cut to 16" to load regardless of size. Gnarlies are a PITA but hydro should handle them easily. I usually leave the knotty ones behind. Turned into a wood snob in my old age!
I can relate to the 'wood snob' mentality. Back in the day I would grab just about any hardwood scrounge I could get. Now that I'm on the 3+ year plan, I have turned into a wood snob as well. While I will still put a lot of effort into scrounging stuff that isn't easy to get to (I get some form of sadistic enjoyment out of it), I usually pass on the knotty/PITA stuff as well, and look for logs that will provide decent splits for stacking. However, with this load of Norway maple, the tree company was nice enough to let me know about the score and the homeowners were out on the deck when I was picking up the trees. With all the lookey-loos watching (all out of state people at their vacation home), I kind of felt obligated to take everything. Ended up with way more knots and crotches than I prefer, however it will all get burned in the end.
I'm drooling! Sitting here on the sidelines warming up the bench and watching everyone else have a blast is killing me!!! One.....more....week....and....then...it's....my....turn!!!!!!
Got the big pile of logs bucked up today as well as about 20 four-footers I didn't get to last fall. I still have the large pile of logs by the tractor to buck, however those are out of the way for the moment. The stack of rounds has grown to four to seven rows deep, almost twenty feet long, and around seven feet high in some spots so I need to focus on splitting for a while.
Great work EODMSgt , it was a perfect day to work up here and it looks like your weather made it a great day too.
It stayed in the 60s here with the sun shining and a slight breeze so bugs were not bad. An excellent day to get a large chunk of the logs bucked up. Glad to hear you had decent weather as well.
Thanks. I realize I probably put more time and effort into stacking than I need to, however I like the look and I like being able to know how much CSS I have at any given time. Each four foot high stack is one cord and each five foot high stack is 1.25 cord. The four below will be the first to go in the firewood shed later this summer. With what I have left in the shed from last season, these will fill it back up (holds ~ seven cords). All other stacks and the wood yet to be processed is for future years. These four stacks were kind of haphazardly placed due to lack of available space at the time and it was tough finding level ground.
