For your reading pleasure https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/stacking-wood-zmaz94onzraw
I extend no warranties on the veracity of anything within. In fact haven’t read it myself yet. Just thought it would make for interesting conversation.
Good read. It is most satisfying when your stacks, visible from the roadside, are well known throughout the community. My father works at the town beer store and folks he know comment as do friends. Guess that means I’m an adequate potential husband (they are straight and true). Lol!
I read part of it and decided it was the same type of junk reporters like to print. They know a little bit about it, usually from what they've been told and by what they've read. It is sort of like the stories about pine...
My 14 y/o son does the stacking. He actually enjoys doing it (for now). I will admit his stacks usually look nicer than mine. He's almost a perfectionist with it. He'll look and search for a certain piece and Im like just stack it. But Im glad he takes pride in his work.
I found it amusing. Not even the slightest chuckle? Well, when their daughters reach courting age, they gauge the marital prospects of a man by the way he stacks wood. Weak and insecure men (too timid to get far) build a low stack arranged by log size — heavy logs on the bottom, little stuff on top. The socially or politically ambitious (they're all crooks) stack high and show-offish with big logs on top. The lazy (who never will amount to nothin') leave their wood in a heap or start a pile but never finish. And the sly and mercenary (watch yer virtue and yer pocketbook) stack ground-fall tree limbs and apple tree prunings in with the wood. If you want to keep your psyche to yourself, stack as the sticks come out of the pile.
Those would be good stacks to have if your house is at a three way intersection with a history of cars driving into the living room.
Thanks for sharing - I chuckled at the team’s names, and recognized descriptions of personality traits from a lot of the wood burners I’ve known over the years!
Ha, finally got around to reading it myself. The one point I found interesting and the reason I saved it was the mention of leaving the wood in the forest for one year to season. Goes against common logic and practice. We generally bring the rounds home and leave in an open area. Process when you have time. Agreed? Also could just be the author making stuff up. On the other hand there was one fall when I cut a bunch of live, healthy red oaks that were all leaners. Not a lot of dead or dying to choose from that year so I started on the leaners. Then massive overtime at work hit and I never had a chance to get them out of the woods. Stayed there, stacked in rounds for one year. I was a little shocked at how light they were the next year. I had thought being in a lush, shady jungle like environment they would be soaked, heavy and beginning to rot. I will say rot wasn’t too far off. There was a definite transformation occurring. Anyone else ever experience anything like that? I’m sort of interested in the stages between living and rot that wood goes through. And what stage or process best preserves the wood for firewood usage. Conventional thinking would be CSS as soon as possible. Logical.
All the red oak I CS at the mini honey hole was pretty wet inside despite being propped up off the ground and getting decent afternoon sun plus good air movement on the edge of a field. It was maybe two years before I cut it. Can't say I've experienced anything like you did though. My logic is the same...try to CSS asap to start the drying process.
I've found out that red Oak doesn't like to sit around and wait in my driveway, especially the bigger pieces. The outer wood will give way and then the center starts to give way...especially if in contact with the ground....
Hmm, what kind of time frame is it sitting? I've not experienced the same (unless of course it's on the ground).
.... a year... but it might be also that it’s in piles sitting in the driveway... I’d love to get it Processed faster, but with the hours at work, the kid all his activities, plus the house... never seems to be enough time.. but I’m taking advantage of this nice weather this weekend......
Ah, I’ve never let it sit quiet that long. I have a mountain beside my driveway waiting for cool temps. Pretty sure it’s not red though.
