It's a good workout Your just fine tuning your wood hoarding muscles, which will make you a lean mean wood hoarding machine
Totally unrelated but I find that interesting you have a state cutting area I can't even begin to tell you how much wood is down on state lands here only to left to rot where it is
I have such a mix of wood it's hard for me to separate out one species over the other. I have all hardwood. We don't burn Pine around here mostly because it isn't as prevalent here. Something that I found this year that really works well for my stove is small splits. I can load he box full and get a longer better burn and get a good coal bed. Puts out plenty of heat. I've started splitting all my wood into small splits now. Makes for better drying easier handling and loading of the stove plus a great burn
I usually do the same thing. Hardwood at night and sassafras, aspen, tulip and sycamore during the day if I'm home. Quick heat in the AM and burns the coals down nicely. I add a little hardwood during the day if needed. No hard and fast rules really just watching the fire and the temperature. Split size and dryness play into this as well. It's nice to have a variety of species and split sizes to run the stove differently if you choose.
