You may well have noticed already (or will soon) davidlandon that an opportunity for humor is rarely missed, and a chance to derail a thread can Be half the fun....
Welcome davidlandon, nice to meet you . Lots of good advice here. If you already have a cheap moisture meter it should work but if you're wavering on its accuracy it wont cost you much to get into a new one. Remember to check the moisture in the center of a freshly split round and get the wood as close to 70f as you can before testing as this is the temp that most meters are calibrated to.
Nice aerial! Tried talking the wife into getting the kids a drone for Christmas but it hardly made the floor for a vote. We both knew I wanted it to survey the property.
Welcome aboard. I'm a newbie too and am enjoying the club a lot. Did the similar thing. Jambed an insert into a hole that belched 5 dollar bills into the sky when ever we used it. (Can't shut the damper until its cold ash so a nice hour or so in the evening had me waking up to all zones firing on the furnace for who knows how long). Did that in 2008 and the savings has more than paid for the equipment and the intangibles added value hard to calculate.
Id love to have a drone too, im actually up in the bucket at work removing a hazard tree from the power lines
Should I note that comment in my pea brain? "Eric- be more serious" About what......wait...what where you joking about?
I could go x5 since my parents were going to name me Dave. But there were too many Daves so I just got Rob. So I guess it's still Dave x4 and Rob x1. That was stupid... I'll stop now. Welcome!
...there's no way I could talk her into a bucket truck. I should have started with that and negotiated down to a drone.
I got the harbor freight moisture meter yesterday. Anxious to see how close it is to my other one. Regardless, I'm gonna follow the advice of this site and wait 3 years for the freshly cut oak. This has been quite a mild winter for NWA, so I haven't even used my new fireplace. I just plan on cutting cutting cutting, splitting splitting splitting, stacking stacking stacking until I run out of trees to harvest. Then I reckon I'll have to look elsewhere and keep doing the same. Can anyone tell me what species this is? My guess is red elm but I'm far...I mean FAR from being an expert, more like a toddler. It's a lot redder than the pic shows and the bark has deep ridges in it. Plus it's quite stringy when it's split.
Welcome to the family, davidlandon! You're off to quite the start, talk about diving straight in! That's basically how I did it, got really serious back in 2007 and went all-in...... I wouldn't day the first year was a "struggle", but it was challenging....getting seasoned wood to start out with. I think I bought my one and only load of wood that year (around two cord of split and seasoned walnut), harvested a lot of standing dead maple and oak off of the neighbors farm, and that got me through that first season. I quickly met up with many members here on another forum and we figured out the "3 Year Plan" (getting three years ahead on your wood storage), and now I'm sitting at close to 6 years ahead. Mostly oak, hickory, and locust. As for seasoning oak, I'd give it at least 2 years minimum C/S/S (cut/split/stacked).....it's a bit stingy in regards to giving up its moisture.....but well-worth the wait. You will find this forum to be full of great folks with quite a few common interests, and by the looks of it, you're gonna fit right in..
I love the views from 80'......I'm usually climbing and not in a bucket though.... One of the giant whites I did in 2015.....before and after delimbing
Welcome! You'll fit right in. If you were from Ontario your hydro bill would of been more like $1000 I can't imagine anyone heating with electric here is down right nuts. Wood is much better!
Yes, I would say that most likely is red elm although we don't have any here and I've seen it only in pictures. Looks typical for sure. Also, you say you feel you are a part of this family now; no. You definitely are part of this family of hoarders and we all welcome you.
