My Five Year Plan - A Few Questions - Suggestions Welcome

Some nice cool air moved in over night making for some good processing weather. Still trying to work through my "in-process" wood; would like to get this cut to length and at least off the ground before it gets too hot. A few pictures of progress so far; needed a breather before hitting it some more.

Black walnut cut to length; these came to me in very odd lengths and resulted in more shorts and odds


Mulberry pieces that laughed at the x27


Silver maple that laughed at me and the x27


And, just to leave you all laughing, I wanted to share with you my latest brain storm idea (my wife would tell you they are more storm than brain). I have an old shoulder injury that flares up from time to time and now is one of those times. Really want to give hand splitting a rest for a month or two so that I can play a little golf this summer. Still have way too much silver maple from h@ll that I need to get off the ground and do something with before summer. Toying with the idea of cutting this into slabs and stacking them on pallets to season before splitting some time in the future. I have tons of small kindling strips that I would place between each slab to provide an air gap; top slab would be larger than ones below to provide rain protection for slabs below. Slabs are 4 to 6 inches thick and much easier to split than in current length. Extra sawdust will be bedding for the chickens.

 

I agree about getting work done when it's not so hot. I roasted myself last weekend as it was hot and muggy. I got further into my hoard, but I've convinced myself that I'll get ahead of this year in fall. I've got enough trees dropped and bucked in the woods that I'm not worried. I'll get my 2.5 or more cords, for next winter stacked at my house soon enough. I've already got a cord stacked at the house, and another cord and a half at my buddys house. Being able to only take a 1/2 cord at a time limits my productivity, as it's a half hour drive each way from where I gather and stage my wood.

I'll get ahead 2 -3 years at least this fall, but any more than that is not realistic for me.


It looks like you need to rent a splinter. A bad shoulder is a doctors note for an already great idea of buying a splitter of you plan on getting 5 years ahead. It's a good idea even if you are cutting 1 cord of wood.

 

You are correct, I am going to be in for a bit of a bother for some time; I have shorts from old wood cut down to fit the new Fireview and shorts from tree service wood. Biggest lesson I learned this spring is the best firewood is the wood you cut yourself to the correct size. Getting free wood or a good price on a lot of wood came with the hidden cost of too many shorts for me. I now understand why people buy loads of logs and cut to the length they want.

I too likely needed surgery, but decided against it. I really enjoy hand splitting, time will tell how long I can continue to do it. I keep looking at splitters, but all the ones I like are more expensive than my stove.