Over the past couple of months, we've been expanding our club shooting range. This has involved clearing out a lot of 80 ft tall poplars. Since part of the plans include a new firepit, a few of us decided to do our part for the club and get a decent firewood pile started. So far, we've spent 2 days on it. It's a pain having to cut, haul, unload, and then go back and to re-handle it for splitting after the range opens, but that's the only way we can get any decent amount hauled without interfering with the regular range operating hours. I hope to get out one more time before the snow really starts to fly. In a year when the expansion is complete, this stuff should be dry enough for some nice cookouts.
It always amazes me when you compare the popple from your area to the popple in ours. Yours just gets so much bigger than ours. The popple around here typically grows to less than half the size of yours then just dies out. I think your popple also gives more btus than ours.
Yeah....some of them get downright huge. I don't know about the actual BTUs it puts out, but whatever it lacks in BTUs, it makes up for in the amount of ash it leaves behind. When I was working my Monday to Friday job, I'd only burn in the evenings and on weekends. Doing that with my old stove, I'd have to clean out the stove every 2-3 weeks burning extremely dry lodgepole pine and spruce. Poplar filled it up in 3 days. Maybe I should give it another go with the higher efficiency 30NC and see how it does. We are loaded with the stuff, and people are more than happy to let you cut as much as you want. Some refer to it as Alberta's weed tree. The stuff is loaded with water when it's first cut. The rounds in the trailer are easily 100lbs each.
It looks a lot like our alder - the weed tree of BC. Ours seems to have more knots. Red alder is our only real hardwood but it grows so fast it doesn't have a very tight grain.
I have used poplar as shoulder season, but not during the mid winter burns. How does it stand ip in your mind?
Most "poplar" is weed tree imo. It looks like quaking Aspen or white alder. The tops of cotton wood look like that too. All in the same family!"poplar" "popple"
