I leave mine in a metal bucket with cover for about a week. Then empty it into a plastic trash bag and leave it there for a day. Shake the bag the next day to make sure there's no small holes which could indicate a hot ember then I just throw it away in the trash. I have a city lot so not much room to spread it around the yard and even if I did my dog would track it all over the house.
I have two places I put mine. If there is water in the small wetlands / brook just beyond my yard, I will toss the ashes in there. If its dry, I will toss them into my firepit to cool, and in the spring they go into the woods.
Y'all are always great for information. Seems like most of us handle ash similarly. We have a 2 gallon galvanized bucket that we dump the ash pan into. When it gets full we dump that into a 33 gallon galvanized trash can. We dont have a garden and I wasnt really sure why I was saving it. I ended up listing it on a local Facebook group and had a lady come by and gey two 5 gallon buckets full. She mixes it in with several other ingredients for a fall/winter chicken bath. Just seemed like a waste to toss.
My wood chopping adventures that started Oct-2019 have progressed into lots of "How can I reuse this in something else?". So I take all my wood chips, sawdust, chipped off bark, whatever, and run it through the chipper. Then I toss it into a compost pile, mix in kitchen scraps, and then that progressed into building a raised garden with (6) 4' x 8' x 11.5" beds........Trying not to just throw stuff out if I can find use for it in another form. I take the shorties I get that don't stack well and make kindling out of them (black locust, maple, oak, and the best so far is spruce and pine - that stuff is insanely good for kindling). I also take some of the thicker branches that are too big for the chipper but too small to stack and use them in the firepit. I really love how every single person's approach is different - different land, trees, tools, chainsaw models, sharpening methods, and circumstances. No two people are alike....and it's awesome to get some great ideas from each other than you can then incorporate into your routine.
Our chickens love ashes to take a dust bath in. I have a couple 55 gallon barrels that get ash dumped into them. In the fall when I put fertilizer on the pasture, whatever ashes are left get added to the buggy and applied with the fertilizer.
