And there’s a time to cut your losses. I took a little road trip to cut some pine. I don’t have much pine in the inventory and I have a few outdoor burner customers who want pine. My son will also be needing more fire pit fuel in the near future. I was hoping for a short leaf score, but it was my second favorite loblolly. When I arrived at the place there was a few old weathered fallen pines along the driveway, so I drove to the house looking for something better. No luck, the old pines was all there was, so I turned back towards the old pines. A fella walks down to me and says take whatever you want, including standing trees. It’s a big wooded property, so I give it a good looking over in hopes of finding a gargantuan SBH. Again no luck, it’s mostly big loblolly, poplar and 4-6” Beech. I didn’t want to go home empty handed, so I cut a few campfires worth. It will be a good resource if I ever want more pine. It started snowing, so I packed up and sped to Walmart for a 30 pack and bread.
Chud, could you expand more on this use of loblolly or shortleaf pine? Do you burn it? What do you think of it? How do customers use it? Do you fell and split living trees? Do you wait to buck and split after they have been down awhile due to sap? How long? The sap makes it really messy until it dries out some. Do you only process dead standing or just what? Do you use a log splitter or split by hand? Sorry, lots of questions, lol. I never see mention of loblolly or shortleaf pine as firewood. I ask because here (or in a ton of the deep south) I could get, literally, unlimited amounts of this. I don't know what the percentage is but it is huge and that is the amount of land that has been converted from mixed hardwood forests to southern pine species. Which, generally, means loblolly. There are billions of them in every county. When they log a tract, they usually leave huge amounts of cutoff stems just laying in piles. Of course, getting anyone to buy pine for firewood might be impossible. It is ingrained from birth that pine is pretty much worthless as firewood. I keep meaning to experiment it with myself but I have had more than enough hardwood to deal with, what with the windstorms that come through and knock down hardwoods. Do you prefer shortleaf? If so, why? Thanks for the pics, interesting thread.
Kinda surprised to see you taking pine after all the primo oak you get, but heck if you have a market for it why not. Looks like a good source. Nice you can go when you want. The guy I cut for at my Disney thread has several barkless softwood logs hanging around and asked me last time what I'd do with them. Buck to 12", split, fill IBC's and sell to Summertime burners was my suggestion. Some looked like spruce which is a nightmare to split with all the knots why I suggested the shorter length.
