Sorry to start another thread, but since I was cutting alone yesterday this question popped up and I am certain many of you will have good feedback. How small down the tree do you guy cut/salvage? I generally stop around 2 inches, and once in a while if the limb is straight chop down to an inch. I set all of this aside for kindling. The rest will be chipped in the spring. What do you guys do? I do not see a lot of rounds in any of our stacks (or I missed them), but wanted to see what others are doing.
Seems odd but it depends on tree. maple down to inch or soo. Popular might be three inches on tops. then brush goes into bonfire. apple or cherry real small as all friends want small for smokers
Depends on the day, I've taken down to an inch, and if it's a straight piece right before a y in the branch ice been known to take smaller, I almost always regret taking so much of the little sticks, it takes a really long time to fill the truck, empty it and stack when your stacking twigs. I've started to only take twigs and sticks when my boiler is running, so when I get home I can throw then straight in and only have to move it twice, and ive only dropped a handful of live trees, the rest are dead so I know everything is relatively dry. Everything else is cssd, trying to get to 2 years ahead, by the end of winter I hope to be in the promisedland of the 3 year plan!
That being said if anyone has the time, effort, motivation or the want not waste not mentality of only leaving crooked twigs on the ground, I would say. Enough goes to waste in this world, hats off to you!
I think motivation has a lot to do with for me. Why wind up the 461 for a twig, and why start the smaller saw for the same reason. When motivated I save the maple, ash and beech for shoulder/starters.
Every little bit helps, but if I have 20 rounds that I can barely lift and plenty of wood to cut in front of me, I'm cherry picking first!
What little I cut off my home property at my camp is stuff that blows down across an access road/trail. So I cut down to 2" so theres less brush to deal with. I also look at it this way ,,,,,splitting is just another process so the more wood in a load that doesn't need split , the better.
I depends on where the tree lands! Any that fall in the yard, I'll take down to about 1.5" since it needs to be cleaned up and moved anyway. But if they fall in the woods I've gotten to where I'll leave anything smaller than 4". I have more dead standing ash than I can manage, so it's not worth my time to mess with anything smaller. I just drag all the branches into a pile for rabbit habitat and let it be.
Oak limbs say 6" in diameter may have 1.5" of bark on each side; for a log of only about 3" in diameter.
It all depends on the tree. Standing dead in the woods, good hardwood and solid - I might go down to 1-2". Especially something like hornbeam. Pine I'll take down to 2" because the limbwood, when dry, burns nice and hot for maple syrup production in the spring. Yesterday I dropped an 8" diameter apple tree in the yard and went down to an inch, I save all my apple wood and prunings for BBQ. Species with thick bark like white oak and black locust isn't worth taking anything under 3-4" because it's all bark. Generally though, just under 2" is about it. It's too much hassle to get anything useful out of smaller stuff. I also tend to cut the small stuff (< 3") into 3-4' lengths and stack separately, they are great for stuffing the boiler full and making lots of coals.
Down to the last inch for me... Gotta make it all count Although when i get back into the swing of things post Hernia recovery, I may adopt a "bend down less often" attitude towards the < 3" stuff- unless I have a helper...
I have plenty of firewood stacked up so I don't worry too much about small stuff. Also depends on where its coming from. A lot of the wood I get is from tree jobs I do. If its a tree job anything under 6-8 inches goes into the chipper. I just keep the bigger stuff if the owner doesn't want it. Also some of the cutting I do is from where properties were logged. There is hundreds of tops laying there already and small stuff isn't worth taking. Also I'm not wasting anything by not taking it as its already laying in the woods left over from logging. It will rot and go right back to the dirt to feed another growing tree.
