So with the weather finally starting to get a bit cooler at night, and with me finally working on clearing up the several cords of old rounds/logs in the woodlot, I'm starting to think more about all the standing dead I have on the property that will eventually have to come down thanks to the #&@%* caterpillar defoliation/devastation. Over the eleven years prior to the caterpillar Armageddon, I had cleared my property (a mostly wooded five acres) of any useable dead hardwood trees. I only cut a few live trees down over the years, and those were primarily due to storm damage. With other productive offsite scrounge locations for firewood, there was never any reason to fell live trees on my property. Fast forward to today, and after taking a tally on a good chunk of the property, my count of standing dead that need to come down is: Red Oak: 34 White Birch: 12 Red Maple: 6 Ash: 2 Beech: 1 Thats a total of 55 standing dead (hardwood) trees that have all died off since 2021 thanks to the caterpillars. And that's only a rough count of around 2/3 of the property that I mapped out so far. It's a shame that I lost so many trees to the defoliation, but at least I won't have to go far to scrounge firewood for the foreseeable future (not that it will stop me from still looking for good scrounges). It'll take a long time to drop all of these, and it'll be lot of work to get some of these out of the woods. With so many red oaks (and most are huge, old trees), due to the volume of eventual splits I'll probably start doing Holzhausen oak stacks once I start getting them processed. Additionally, there are a lot of standing dead conifer trees (primarily hemlock and white pine) that I will also be processing over time to mix in with the shoulder season firewood. In just a few years, I went from having my property clear of standing dead (not counting softwood) to having years' worth of future work (looking at all those red oaks). Some of the oaks may end getting milled for a future pole barn or garage-type structure, but most will end up as firewood.
I've been burning firewood as my main source of heat for 15 years now, and being a hardcore firewood scrounger, it is tough to not subconsciously gauge dead and down I find while out walking (or hunting) in the woods for its potential BTUs as well as how easy it is to get the scrounge home. While beech is my #1 local wood to burn, one of my favorite dead and down to scrounge is long-dead red oak, the kind with the bark long gone and hard as driftwood. Sometimes I'll take a BAHCO timber saw with me when going for a walk in the woods in case I come across some of the red oak and can snag a piece to carry home. Granted, most people wouldn't do this, and I'm not talking about long distances, but I can understand how most people (even hoarders) wouldn't go this far for small sections of firewood. For me it's all part of the firewood hoarding fun. I'm already out in the woods, I get some additional exercise, and over time, those small pieces add up (plus I have a long way to go to build my current hoard back up to my previous 20 cords CSS). The pics are just from a few days of grabbing pieces while going for walks in the woods (maybe have about six or so miles total walking in round trips). Beats going to a gym and that long dead red oak seasons fast and burns great.
That’s some of my favorite too. Branch dies. Bark falls off. Sapwood rots off. Nothing left but pure bone dry BTU’s. Just gotta wait for them to fall off of the tree..
It’s amazing how much damage bugs can cause. I’ve got mulberry, oak and ash that all need to be cleared prior to building. so I get it with the concern of tree removals around buildings.
It seems the red oaks took the brunt of the caterpillar damage with white birch coming in second (most of the other hardwoods bounced back much better). During 21 & 22, there were so many caterpillars competing for food, and every deciduous tree had been stripped, that they were even defoliating the conifer trees. I lost several hemlocks, pines, and spruce to the buggers. In my local geographic area, there are probably thousands of red oaks that are now dead. Such a shame.
