The Mountain Ash that grows in north America is a smallish tree with very obvious orange berries that stay on the tree into winter. It is fairly common as a landscape tree, and common in the wild in eastern Canada and northeast US. Nice tree but not related to other ashes and probably not much good as firewood, mainly because an 8 inch diameter mountain ash would be a big one. Hopefully some sort of biological control for Emerald Ash Borer will be discovered so the EAb can be knocked down to a population level that will allow some ash trees to grow to full size. Around here the large ash are all being killed, but plenty of smaller ones are still sprouting. The EAB doesn't seem to kill them until they get large enough to have rough bark
Welcome to the forum Woodscrounger. Ash is indeed one of the best. It really is not that far behind oak. 18 months should be good to go but it will still be to your benefit to get onto the 3 year plan. As for how long they last, we started cutting dead ash in 2002 but got started in earnest in 2003. We still have several years worth of cutting to do and I am certain we won't get it all before some of it goes bad. They are now rotting at the root and falling over. I don't mind if they have something to fall on instead of laying right on the ground. But even then, they will last several more years just laying on the ground. We found some again this year that I had cut but probably had a full load and didn't get it all on. In that spot, I believe it was either 4 or 5 years ago when we cut some so it has been laying on wet ground all this time and it is still good.
I agree that mountain ash is an ornamental tree and we see lots of them here. I doubt the borer would attack those.
Everything is snow covered today, but these are my stacks in the back yard. This fall I moved some of the drier wood into that little shed as well as another shed on my property. My home made stove is nothing to look at its just an old water heater tank that I shortened and added a door frame and door. It sits upright like a potbelly stove.
