That looks like ambrosia maple . Some people like to cut that up into boards and/or make bowl blanks for turning if there aren't too many ambrosia beetle grub holes. It must depend on the stain patterns because some also consider the wood worthless except for firewood.
Sweet... nice stacks. We try to replace the wood burned every season to keep er at 6 cords. Never run low then. We only use 2.5cords usually tho..our 2 stoves are pretty efficient.. one in garage is always got something burnin. Rock on!!
Hi All - Been a few months since I've been on the forum here. Been cranking away with work and the farm and just haven't had much time. Hope everyone here is happy and well. Haven't had much time at all to work on wood lately. Glad I put in as much time in hoarding and CSSing as I did back in winter. Got 1.5 to 2 years of firewood for the house stacked into the wood shed. Plenty more ready to go to be split and stacked on pallets. Front half of the shed, about 3.5 to 4 cord is two year old mixed hardwoods and then ash that's baking away in this summer heat. The ash will have just shy of 12 months time on it come next burn season. Can't wait for cooler temps........ Have to make sure I get the stove pipe brushed out and I may replace a few of the fire bricks in the stove soon. Kind of crazy to think that we may be firing up the stove in just three months time to take the chill out on a September evening. The little bit of wood work I've been able to do the last few months has pretty much just been cutting up some more storm damaged trees on the property, splitting pine kindling and doing a little bit of splitting of hemlock and pine for the sugar house. We had a crazy wind storm on April 13th that took out a few pines pretty close to the sugar house. So not too far to move those cuts to where their final resting place will be. Heres one of the pines all cut up with a little bit of small diameter maple in the back. That red cedar pole behind the saws in the picture above became the post and rail for our new farm sign. Milled the boards with the Granberg mill and 391. Sister in law painted the letters on. It's since been clear coated and the color of the cedar really pops. Got five wheelbarrow loads of pine smalls/kindling split up and moved into the house to dry in the stack by the basement dehumidifier. Already at 16% on the moisture meter. Been moving a ton of logs around for the shiitake operation. It's been so dry here that our creek dried up. I had intended to use the creek to draw water from to fill a 100 gallon trough for force fruiting our shiitake logs. Thankfully I've been able to transport about 120 logs to the other farm I work at and get the logs some much needed soak time. First harvest of the year produced 17.5 lbs of mushrooms from just 32 logs. Got another 40 out of the trough and on the fruiting rack this morning. All that time spent cutting logs for mushrooms is finally paying off! Also wanted to share a picture of my new favorite beech tree that I discovered out back. Can't believe I went nearly 6 years without seeing it! Other than that, haven't done much more on the wood front. Pretty much just in a holding pattern now, excited as ever and just a little bit nervous, as we're within a couple weeks of bringing home a little guy in this -
Sure have missed you here. I do check in on FB with ya. Congratulations on the soon to be arrival. Prayers for safe and healthy baby and mom.
Yes sir, seen your comments on FB a couple times recently. I'm so bad at replying to post comments on the farm page. Sorry about that. I do appreciate the comments and views! Hope you're all well down by you.
Looking great Adam. You have been real busy. We will be camping at Housatonic Meadows in July and will have to stop by for a visit! Love the cedar sign. Came out real nice!
Got down to my brother in law’s this morning to finally take down the Norway maple he asked me to get to last year. 22” DBH. Short main before break into multiple leads. Back side of it was pretty dead. Bulk of its weight was on the side of the direction it need to go. That took a lot of the worry out of the job. Neighbors house was close behind. Just a little bit of planning to figure out a few things. Lopped off a few low hanging dead branches on the back side to keep me safer during cutting. Put a tight rope on to his truck for a little bit of extra pull away from the neighbors. It helped that he’s about to take down the old deck on the back of his house so we didn’t have to worry about any damage there. Ended up being a pretty straightforward and uneventful cut. Propped itself up on its branches after it came down. That was expected. Just made for a bit slower go at bucking it all up. Had To puzzle piece it down to stay safe and keep it from turning over. Was a fun one to cut down - aside from some poison oak. Stayed clear away from that piece of it after it was down. Intended to haul the usable wood home today but with this heat and humidity I was done. Didn’t feel like loading the truck. Will get it next time I’m there. Probably toss the wood into the pile for the sugar house.
Nicely done sir, on the ground, no one hurt, and no damage. I like Norway maple. Splits easily, seasons fast and more btu's than red maple. Dont blame you for calling it quits. Its humid out there.
Last Saturday started out as a great day. Our morning farm market sales were through the roof. Customers were all nice and friendly. That was excellent. It was supposed to be raining but it ended up being a beautiful day, albeit hot. It was just one of those good feeling mornings. In the afternoon I had a nice lunch with my wife and we speculated excitedly about the baby being born in the coming days. I was also able to get lots done around the house. That took a mental load off being able to chip away at the list. So still just a great day. Later in the afternoon I was working on wood for the sugar house and the great day ended there... Lifting a large-ish piece of red maple into the ATV cart I suddenly felt like someone inflated a balloon and then deflated it quickly right below my waistline. Knew right away I probably just gave myself a hernia. Went through the next day of on-and-off jabs of pain and burning sensations but then it settled down a little. It was a little bothersome at work on Monday. Been feeling unpleasant and a little worse each day since then. Waiting for a referral call back to schedule an exam with a surgeon to see what’s really going on. So that sucks. On top of all this, my wife was due to give birth yesterday - little dude is playing the stubborn card now I guess. So just bad timing all around with this hernia. I’m hoping it will self resolve but everything I’ve been told about hernias or have read ... nope, that’s not happening. Luckily I get two weeks for paternity leave so that'll be good. Anyways, I left the farm about mid morning this morning with my computer and a load of office work to get done. Figured a light duty day would be good for resting this nagging hernia crap. Beautiful day today. Low 70s and a nice breeze. Sun peeking in and out of the clouds. I set up in the shade on the table out back to get my work done. At about 11 o’clock I’m starting to lose my mind a little bit in an Excel spreadsheet (how you office folks do it I will never, ever understand) when I hear a truck backing in down at the end of our driveway. Then I hear a couple shouts followed by a motor and some crashing. Knew right away what was going on... A good friend of mine put me in touch with a foreman for one of the major tree companies working in the area. I guess a bunch more windmills are going in a few miles up the road so they’re clearing the sites now and are up to their eyeballs in wood. Quick phone call later and I was on the drop list for some free wood! Told the guy that I’m open to hardwood, softwood, any wood. Whatever he’s got, I’ll take! Need a few more cord of pine and hemlock for the sugar house so faster seasoning pine and hemlock is just fine (wont be ideal, I know, but it'll be close - I've had plenty of good burns in the arch off 8 month seasoned pine). Anything else, the hard stuff, I’ll stack away onto the overflow seasoning pallets I’ve set up. So, first load dumped! Mix of all different size stuff. Mostly the manageable sizes. Few pieces from higher DBH trees. Pine, sugar maple, little bit of hickory in the back, hemlock, some ash. Might be a nice piece of oak on the bottom in there but it’s hard to tell with all the brush and vines in the pile. Hey, I’ll take it!!! Nice little bright spot on the day. Too bad it'll be a while before I'm able to chip away at it. Haha.
Have faith with your hernia. Chaz has been dealing with one for a couple of years now. Never been a good time to have surgery. I quit asking him about it. Can't wait to see pics of the little one. Have a name picked out yet?
Good and bad news to read, brother. Glad the little one will be here soon. Praying for the new family, all will be well. Nice load of wood Take care of yourself. You can live with a hernia, but things can go south in a hurry. I've had 3 hernia surgeries. Hopefully it's not that bad.
Pine is awesome for sugaring burnish hot and fast!! Perfect for an arch! Heal well and congratulations on the new addition.
Is it a boy hernia or a girl? (that was in an episode of MASH) All kidding a side that sucks. Be safe and favor it. Great score on the wood. Looking forward to seeing the new addition to the family! If you need any help with wood processing Adam, let me know. Glad to lend a hand.
Yep, we picked out a name pretty quickly. Will share pics and name when the little dude is finally here
