My firewood hoarding ear came through again

When you've got two stoves to feed through a Michigan winter, you've got to do a lot of scrounging before you get to the hoarding.

I've learned to recognize the sound of chain saws and commercial wood chippers at a great distance. This morning I heard the faint sound of a commercial wood chipper. I jumped on my tractor and followed the sound. Next thing I knew I was riding my John Deere at top speed (14 mph) along the shoulder of a 55 mph highway.

About a mile from my house I found what I was looking for: a tree service taking down 4 or 5 big trees -- 30-40" diameter at breast height. They all look to be red maple, with maybe one silver maple in the mix. (I burn mostly oak and hickory cut from my own property, but I'll burn anything if it is cut to length and dropped off for free).

I offered to taxi the wood back and forth with my tractor and a trailer. The owner of the tree service chuckled and pointed to his skid steer and dump truck. A few hours later, the wood starting coming. Two dumps today, and three or four more tomorrow. In all, probably a winter's worth of heat for my house and barn.

I've burned silver maple but never red maple. I consider silver maple to be good but not great firewood. Is red maple about the same? Does it dry fast like silver maple? Will big splits season in two years?

Here's are the two dumps from today. I threw one of my size 12 shoes on a piece for scale, since everything looks small in the photos.







A big load of free wood still gets me excited after years of splitting, stacking, and burning the stuff.

 

The best thing about Red Maple is how fast it lights up. It’s good to mix with Oak.

 

Sounds about like silver maple then -- easy to light, burns hot, fairly fast, and leaves some nice of coals.

 

Red definitely dries fast like silver. I’ve had no problem getting it below 20% in less than a year (top covered) The bonus is that it coals much better than silver, although obviously not as good as oak/hickory.

 

Thats one heck of a score Jonathan Y Way to get after it! I have the same "hearing problem" when it comes to saws and chippers!

Red has more btu's than silver. A typical "one year" drying wood IME. It will dry fast under ideal conditions...full sun and lots of air movement.

 

Split it now and it’s more than ready to burn starting fall of 2023! Awesome score, and being proactive and seeking it out!

 

Red maple is underrated aside from having a long burn time it does everything else good. Splits easy, dries fast, lights easy, throws good flames, decent coals

 

Nice score, kudos on the service helping you out too. Red maple would warm you fine. I try keeping my cottonwood as big as I can for reference so it burns longer. Your maple will dry quick too if you're keeping it in the right place too.

 

An entire heating season of wood? Delivered and cut? Giddyup!!!

 

And it came with a shoe!

seriously, congrats on the score!

 

How awesome to have that brought to you!

 

Great score and delivered to boot! (see what I did there?)

I wonder if that shoe/boot is waterproof? I was just looking at some this morning. No more wet tenners from walking through the dew covered grass for this guy. What brand is it? Where'd ya get it? Has it lived up to your expectations?

We should all be so lucky to get a years worth of firewood delivered!

 

Now thats the way to gather firewood...

 

Reds better than silver but any wood cut and delivered is step or 2 in right direction

 

Wow, that's pretty epic. Will the tree crew/foreman get any consolation prizes?

 

Cut lengths don't look so bad either.
Often times they are far too many ridiculously long or short.

 

Thanks everyone for sharing my excitement! I have come and gone from this forum over the years (with my current account and a previous one), and I've always found a bunch of friendly firewood loving folks when I decide to pop in.

I'll take free cut-to-length rounds of any maple (except nasty box elder) over cutting my own hickory or oak.

Eric Wanderweg Good to know. Come January I don't always need the massive piles of coals that hickory and oak give me, so your point is a good one.

BuckeyeFootball I'll add it to my mental list of underrated woods, which includes red elm and pieces of the softwoods (pine, spruce, etc) with big knots.

FatBoy85 Same here. I split the btu dogs that tree services bring me (white pine, cottonwood, willow, spruce) as big as I can cram into my stoves.

MikeInMa I'm thinking I might end up getting 5 or 6 full cords, which will get me through a normal winter. It's hard to judge since big rounds contain a heck of a lot of splits. I am always surprised how much more wood I end up with when splitting a pile of 40-50" rounds vs. the same size pile of 12-16" ones. Less bark and sapwood, too.

Backwoods Savage If it splits like you say I will try to quarter some of the big chunks with a maul before using my splitter. I do that a lot since I hate trying to maneuver 300-400 lb rounds in order to get those first few splits with the splitter. I also have fun creating kindling with my splitter. I like getting a stringy wood like American elm and running the splitter half way into a piece about 20 times from all different directions until it is a big stringy mess, but still held together as one piece. When those pieces dry I can light one with a match and the whole piece takes off in seconds.

yooperdave Greetings from SE Michigan. The shoe is waterproof. The brand is Sloggers. I think they call them "Waterproof Comfort Shoes." They are all I wear when doing outside work unless I need steel toed boots. Super comfortable and the last long enough that I wear the soles out. I think I paid $30 or $40 a pair for them on Amazon. They are natural rubber and don't get stinky even when I've got sweaty feet from working outside in the heat. I recommend them highly.

The Wood Wolverine I'm in the habit of giving snacks and cold beverages to the guys who bring me wood chips. They work for a big corporate company (Asplundh) that prohibits cash tips to employees. If he brings me the promised 3 or 4 more loads today, he deserves more than snacks and drinks. Maybe $50? Too little? He's saved me countless hours of felling and bucking trees, but at the same time, he was excited to find a close place to dump the logs. It was a win/win, although I do intend to show my appreciation. (Big loads of cottonwood / pine / willow / box elder do not receive a tip, but soft maple is tip worthy in my book).

billb3 The worst is a big load of rounds cut to 24-25" lengths. A tad too long for my big stove which has a 22" deep firebox. But if I cut them in half, the 12" splits are shorter than I like and don't stack very well. 16" to 22" is the sweet spot for me, and most of what he delivered falls in that range.

 

I did some poking around in the pile today and I think I've ID'd silver maple, red maple, and a bonus!! medium size hawthorn (I think?). Hawthorn is one of my favorite woods, right along side beach, honey locust, and white ash. This one looks a little different than the hawthorn I find on my property, but it smells like hawthorn and looks very similar.

Does anyone want to agree or disagree with my IDs?

SILVER MAPLE



RED MAPLE



HAWTHORN?