I think my splitter likes it more than silver maple. At least I do. Historically speaking I’ve burned very little maple. Mostly get it from roadside scrounges, mostly silver, big gnarly roadside trees, don’t like em. Even the 28T DHT would stall out on some of those things. Last year was the first year I had any appreciable SM in my supply. Certainly burned hotter and longer than silver or red. I’d love to get my hands on it. That mid sized excavator really did a job on that corner of my driveway. That corner has always been the soft spot during the thaw. It’s also the spot where I back into the old concrete floor left over from the cow barn. It’s just too wet and muddy out there for heavy vehicles right now. Snow pack is long gone but there’s still a river running out of the forest right down the driveway. Just the land draining because it’s clay and hard pan under the topsoil. Made a bit of a mess dumping today’s load from the other direction. If things dry up a bit I’d love to grab it. Just don’t want to create more trouble than I can deal with on my own, like burying a 7000lb truck with a 7000lb trailer attached Even the tar road took a real beating from all the trucks they brought in. This time of year I won’t even do mail order just so a delivery van doesn’t drive in.
I agree...I don't think that's oak...not sure exactly what it is, but I'm leaning pretty hard that's its not oak...although at a quick glance it does make you think pin oak initially
If this is a darn Elm tree and you guys are pulling wool,,,,,,,,,,,,not funny Agree there’s no defined medullary rays like one would normally see. When I went to pick it up I kneeled down and looked as close as I could and saw what could be described as very fine rays almost the same color as the wood itself. At that point I just put a tong on it and pulled it onboard. If you look at the top of the V in this pic could those be construed as medullary rays? Also looked at some of the normal grain where they did that offset cut thing they do. That grain screamed oak to me. There’s also a cherry oak which the bark reminds me of. May have to whack some off and split it to see better. I’m torn between returning it as Eric might do or bringing it to the mill and getting rich on this hybrid one of a kind oak tree I’ll take some more pics, woops, wrong pic, try this one
Well, if the brush in the pics are from those logs, I think it has alternate branching. That would rule out a maple...
Yes it does look different. This should be the tree,,,,,,,,famous last words. I’ll have to drive back and see if my memory is playing tricks on me. That set of leaves on the third pic looks like hickory too?
Famous last words part two. You were right Eric, that’s not the tree and indeed that was a hickory. And smaller. Lesson of the day, just because you find a v notched log laying next to a v notched stump doesn’t mean it belongs there It does point to a crane of some sort on the job tho. They didn’t fly over there by themselves. I’ll try to delete or alter those pics, save bandwidth, avoid confusion
It’s Red Oak of some sort. Once I had the log resting in the trailer I cut off the V butt to square up the log, measure four feet and whacked off the base. Just didn’t want all that weight hanging out of the trailer. In my fresh cut from yesterday at the base of the tree I can see the medullary rays. Throughout the rest of the log(s) they are all but invisible. Maybe my eyes and IPhone have a filter that erases lines from women’s faces,,,,,,May erase medullary lines too. Some more telling pics.
It reminds me of Willow Oak, but I dunno if it’s that far North. Scarlet, Nuttall, Shumard, Willow have a lighter wood color and bark is hard for me to distinguish the difference. Outside of Willow Oak the leaves can be challenging to distinguish on the others important thing is it’s Oak.
