So I have not taken too many yard trees. A neighbor stopped by a week back and asked if I'd 'take the wood'. Sight unseen I accepted. He was told it was a six cord tree. My best estimate, it's maybe two, Red Oak. And, a lot of that is crotch. The fellow will take care of what I don't take, so I'll cut some of it smaller for him to haul to the brush pile. I'll probably scope out jobs going forward, not so much as to take or not, but to state what I'll take or leave. I don't have a lot in the wings scrounge-wise, and helping a neighbor will lead to more wood in the future. He has a couple straighter more Oaks to come down in the future. I didn't realize how much I miss swinging the maul though!   
if you know someone with a large mill you could get a few beautiful table tops out of those crotches. The rest is firewood.
Agree about the table tops! What an opportunity. As for swinging, you have the right maul. I have one to augment the hydro and it is the best of a bunch that I have tried. Happy splitting!
The good: Long steady burning red oak close to home. The bad: very crotchety yard tree, lots of noodling involved if you want pieces that’ll actually stack well. The ugly: black stain on the end cut indicative of ferrous metal inside, quickest way to find the metal itself without a detector is to slap a fresh chain on the saw and start cutting.
I think you'll find any band miller will not really want to do yard trees for that chance of metal. The one I used we agreed if he hit metal I'd buy him a new blade. Glad we didn't but I've hit metal chainsaw milling for someone (twice) when he swore there wasn't any. Said he planted the tree and lived there there entire life of the tree but I hit screws 2 different times, then quit. He bought me a $50 chain and gave me I think it was $100 for my time. And 6 cord is very lofty! Having processed a 5 cord tree, I can personally attest to your guess of 2. I sure do love those big rounds like that. Sooo many splits each. Makes it worth my time. Dealing with lots of crotches is a total pain though. I end up carving splits to size with the saw because the splitter shreds them. Good luck with those and the maul.
Since you can cherry pick it works out but if you couldn't, I wouldn't get involved. Way too much time to deal with those big crotches.
Those crotches can be easy, or hard, depending on what saw/saws you run. I cut the crotches to length, then start noodling them in about 6 inch wide chunks. Then noodle them to whatever width. With a big saw, they're not too bad. I love big rounds and large trunks like that. That's where all the yield is on a tree. Biggest tree I ever did, was 3.5 cord and that thing was huge. A 6 cord tree would be a monster.
I will leave most of the crotches behind. I like the table idea....think that can be done with a longer bar? No metal yet....that will probably show up in splitting at this point.
I’ve come to the understanding that almost nobody that’s not on this forum truly knows what a cord is. I was talking to a coworker last year and knowing he was a casual burner, I asked him how many fires he had that season. His answer: about half a dozen, and that he burned about SIX CORDS OF WOOD doing it.
If you cut a crotch piece for a table, cut it much thicker than wanted. It’ll be a challenge to keep it flat during drying so plan for some loss to get it there after.
A fire that goes for weeks without going out, is still one fire. I know that is something easy to do. The amount of wood burned could depend on species. A casual burner, probably wouldn't keep the stove going that long. Who knows.
I agree. When i deliver a HALF CORD to a new customer and they say its a lot of wood and their other wood guy was shorting them.
Back at it today. Just splitting, no hauling. This guy has a nice view, but faces north. Its gotta be cold there.....prolly 40' higher too.
