Taking possession is the most important (and funnest) part. I just went back to hand splitting, we'll see how my back & shoulders feel tomorrow.
Yes, after I got the oak from the tree service all split. It was time. We needed to take down the pop-up canopy, good thing because it would have blown away in the last windstorm. So, I'm back to hand splitting, now that all the relevant muscles have atrophied.
The fiskars got to sink it’s tooth into some of the white oak back-log. Then i’ll Have a lot of stacking to do, especially since my thick splits of white oak had a log-o-lanche during that windy storm a couple of weeks ago. Good thing the white oak is not in a hurry.
And these were the small ones! On the way home from work today I decided to detour to the cemetery and see if there was anything worthwhile thrown in their back wood dump. Well I never made it to the back wood lot because on the way I discovered in different parts of the trails were huge cut down oaks and ash. The logs looked to be of manageable size from the car, but pulling up to the carnage they seemed to grow. These were obviously remaining on the side of the trails because they were too huge and heavy for a person to lift. Some logs were in the 5ft diameter range and appeared to be at least 5oo lbs and counting the rings on the main trunk were approx 100 yrs old. Many oak branches were in the 24" to 30" diameter range, but left in 6 and 7 ft lengths. It seemed if there were smaller pieces, they either moved them (possibly to that back lot) or someone already picked through it taking the manageable sized stuff. I found one cut up pile of ash with a 40" diameter base and the 20 inch diameter branches were left in 7' lengths. These were the only 2 small logs and they were at the maximum of of what I could lift into my car. It seems they are pretty wet (which explains the weight) and that is surprising for ash in these parts which has all but died completely and usually been standing dead for some time before being cut down. Maybe being in a more spread out and open space cemetery setting has saved this ash from EAB? Still, they cut it down so maybe it was infected with something? The last pick is of them sitting in my yard awaiting to be bucked and split along with some other recent scores. I know- I'm not expecting to be on the cover of house beautiful any time soon haha!
I'm glad you got what you did, but how frustrating that everything was so huge! Maybe the cemetery groundskeepers will cut it up further, to move it to their wood dump.
Yes Midwinter and buZZsaw BRAD I do plan to go back especially to get to that back wood lot where the smaller stuff may be resting. I will not be getting any more of this stuff unless they buck it up smaller. These logs are 14" and "15 respectively and were the only ones with this small diameter so I was happy at least that they were there. I wasn't about to take my chainsaw out with all the exposure to lurking eyes plus the logs would have been a challenge for my little Ego....both egos's actually
You sure you want to take wood from a cemetery? Just imagine what the roots of those trees might have been into... Could be a lot more than wood spirits in those trunks. You start seeing faces in the fire, you may need an exorcism. Definitely don't burn any on Halloween! or all Hallows Eve.
Ahh the era of great Hollywood films....William Friedkin directed this and the French Connection along with a few other gems. Back then they used pea soup for this scene, today it would be a Computer generated effect. Gotta love analogue!
Well I meant to post this earlier Saturday morning, but my brother surprised me with a call saying he was in town just as I was finishing up and taking these photos. So it turned out a very busy day including going to the firing range and then firing up the brick oven for dinner. It was good that I got a lot of activities packed in because Sunday is supposed to be a washout. Anyway, I'm only now just sitting down and thought I would share this average score with Ya'll to show you how I many times will go for the low hanging fruit. I thought I would take a trip across town to the other side of the river which has a park that borders it's banks for about a half mile. Seems there is always something on the ground there if you're not looking for primo wood and don't mind small stuff. This is the time of year I'm mainly looking for ready to burn seasoned wood and so zombie wood (what I call it) is the target wood I'm aiming my sights on. I got some Sycamore and honey locust as well as some rock hard (almost petrified) black locust. There is a nice clean long branch of beech wood in the 5' diameter range I will need to return for. I took a picture of the BL cut end to see if a photo could capture just how hard and dense this wood is. This well aged black locust dulls my blade before my eyes and the invisible fine powder coating of silt from the river probably doesn't help matters. The stuff is so hard that hitting the end with a hammer would almost be like hitting two hammers together! Ping ping!
