Another one scratched off my unofficial list of species I’ve never gotten. I was out with my kids seeing what I could find and came across some dead barkless ash, so I bucked a few rounds. A few miles further up the road I see a pile of wood out to the curb for free. A gray birch yard tree that someone took down. I’ve scored white, yellow and black birch before, but never gray. Not great firewood as I understand it but it was convenient and will produce some heat for me.
Not bad for free… Few years ago I took possession of a smallish tri-stem paper birch, fully knowing about its tendency to rot if left unsplit. I also fielded comments locally about how crappy it was for any fire, stove or pit. Well, at 1 year CSS/covered, it did pretty well inside and out. 2 years…? Well, it wasn’t going to melt the stove, but I’ll say I like any match light firewood, which it was and made for a good mix with some other shoulder species to get us into the heating season… I consider it similar to yellow tulip, which is a staple firestarter regardless of shoulder or cold times.
COOL! Always fun to scratch one off the list. Don't think I've ever scored any myself. Now you just gotta score some bamboo!
I think it’s called silver birch.. is here anyway More than white less than yellow birch if that helps
That was exactly my experience with paper birch too. I got some in spring 2020 that I split right away and burned 2 winters later. It made excellent “filler wood”. I think I burned it in November-December. I’m sure the stuff that grows in the 49th state is a bit denser, but even so it’s considered “premium” up there, so it’s more than adequate for us here in the lower 48.
Betula populifolia - Wikipedia I used to have a hard time distinguishing them from paper birch, but the main difference is that the bark doesn’t exfoliate like paper does. It also has a dirtier gray look, although the upper branches and young trees look very much like paper birch.
No pictures as it was dark when I finished up but I did get it all bucked to 16” and split. It didn’t smell like wintergreen like yellow or black birch does. The scent actually reminded me of sugar maple more than anything. Not pleasant, but not offensive either just kind of a generic smell. It had a lot of moisture in it and it was very stringy. Not hard to split like elm, just very fibrous. There’s a few stove loads worth to try anyway. I’ll end up stacking it with some black birch that’ll get processed later this week.
I snagged a few white birch rounds from a dead tree that fell the other day during the high winds. Most rounds are 75% solid with some punk creeping in, but fine for firewood purposes. The last time I had white birch was 2020. Then I stopped by my coworker’s house and cut a standing dead striped maple (first time ever score for me) It seems dry enough to burn already, so that’ll be fall shoulder wood.
Nice! I just came across some black birch that is seasoned out. Its going in the shed for use 25/26 season.
I had a bunch of grey birch here. It was growing on a man-made gravel hill as a pioneer species. The pines and poplars came up next and eventually grew over them and the birch were dying off. They rot/punk fast as they wither. They were mostly all gone in a three years period. When I started finding them falling over and punky I cut the last few that were still standing. Not the greatest firewood in the world but easy cutting and splitting.
