You as a young hoarder......When did you find the passion

Great post IonicTick and welcome to the FHC

 

Phase 1, Late 70s through 80s: Growing up in the aftermath of the oil embargo, my dad heated our house with a ducted wood furnace from the basement. Dad cut the wood with a Pioneer and split it with a Monster Maul. I was never old enough to learn to run the saw, but spent a lot of time trying to swing the maul.

Then fuel oil got cheaper in the 90s, and I don't think that old wood furnace has been lit since.

Phase 2, 2006-17: Had twelve addresses in a ten year period moving all over to chase work opportunities. Two experiences stand out.

The first was having two miserably-built rental houses in northern states with nothing but electric baseboard heat and seemingly no insulation. Electric bills of $500-700/mo from November through March got my attention, but there wasn't much I could do about them.

The second was a deadbeat landlord we had who really drug his feet getting our furnace fixed in the middle of the winter. The one thing the house had going for it was an open fireplace. I found the guy who owned the land across the road, and explained the situation. He understood, and generously told me to take some cut rounds that day, while also offering to let me cut in the future. I went and bought a Husqvarna 445 and Fiskers X27 that afternoon and the fireplace kept us more or less warm until the furnace eventually got fixed.

Phase 3, 2018-Present: Figuring we were finally settled, we bought a house, but it didn't have a fireplace. It look me about 18 months to eventually settle on a Jotul Castine for our living room, with a Class A chimney run up through two stories and out near the peak of the roof. I've been really pleased with the job our local stove shop did on it. It starts easily, drafts well, and doesn't eat too much wood.



I'm still cutting and splitting everything by hand, and I don't see that changing any time soon. From a financial perspective, burning wood probably makes little sense as we have an efficient gas furnace now, and our natural gas is pretty cheap. But I enjoy the excuse to be out in the woods in the spring.

 

That's the truth, firewood fills some kind of void for us.

 

I don't "need" wood. I don't chase "free" wood (yet). Not sure why, but prior to this site I didn't even grab curb/roadside rounds for myself. Now I find myself snagging the occasional round or two if I happen to be driving by.

Few weeks ago I found this site and saw everyone's fantastic stacks. Was like hmmm...should probably pick up some of mine. Before that it was just kinda everywhere on the property from last years firewood obsession. There's still piles of rounds everywhere but they'll get picked up eventually. Excavator also made me a massive pile of logs to play with from clearing the building site.

It's just oddly satisfying playing in the woods.

 

I’m starting to think it’s more of a black hole. At least this vice doesn’t include court dates, cells, or expensive 28 day vacations. Death is still on the table.
More wood, more pallets, more wood, more pallets, more wood..........
I’ll take a break after this load I promise. No more big logs, just easy to handle stuff. I have enough I don’t need to get it just because it’s White oak, red oak, black oak, hickory, ash, or cherry.
What did I even do before wood? oh yeah I was trying to fill the void with other stuff.
I’ll go back to work tomorrow and there will be the what did you do this weekend question? Made firewood on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday for my daughter’s birthday party we played laser tag around the wood stacks and log piles. It was perfect.
Rambone

 

If you have to behave compulsively, at least pick a productive compulsion!

 

And makes you grin like a Cheshire cat (and maybe purr a little too) when you are curled up in front of the fire on a cold winter day!

Love it!

 

The members of this site definitely take it to an entirely different level. Tons of respect for all of you. Was just reading the thread about the CT GTG going...those fellas are insane in this heat.

Is it just me, or is different now than it was say 15-20 years ago? I don't remember anyone just giving away wood. Maybe I just wasn't looking for it anywhere but the two tracks. Now there are some tree services giving rounds away. Rounds on the side of the road and curbs. Excavator hauled the tops and brush away. I was out there cutting that pile before he took off with it. Gave me the address to where he takes it and told me to come cut anytime I wanted, they just torch it all in the winter.

 

The increasingly ubiquitous internet helps make many hook-ups easier.
Easier, not effortless.

 

There’s a guy in my town with some land that charges tree services $25 to dump and he burns most of it.
I think less people are burning wood. At least fewer people are asking me for free wood. Im an arborist. Maybe higher heating fuel and energy costs will change that.
I’ve been doing this a while and it seems like we’ve had more storms taking big trees down and more big trees dying in the last 5-10 years, not including eab. Big red oaks are always randomly breaking and falling down, but some years are worse and I don’t know why. It’s getting too hot and dry in my area for Sugar Maples. Seen a lot of big ones dead and dying.
Storms always cause people to get fearful of big trees and they cut everything down within striking distance of their house and beyond.
Never seen so many White Oaks fail in storms as I’ve seen in the past couple years. For most of my career I believed White Oaks to be bullet proof. It’s weird, but they are natural systems that we fool ourselves into believing we know something about.

 

Funny how I retired Aug 2019 after almost 30 yrs commercial construction because I wanted to ''slow down & take it easy for a change''....But still playing with the big saws,cutting wood on parents acreage when I feel like it (and weather permitting,not just relying on work schedule or having a more than 2 days off in a row).

And my tree service buddy still lets me know when he's got the big stuff I prefer ready to dump a big load in backyard driveway here in town..... He places ad on Craisglist when he's taking trees down for a customer,will deliver if you're within 5 miles or will give you property owner's address to pick up some yourself. No one else wants anything over 8-10" diameter,nothing but straight knot free stuff too,no crotches,triple forks or big horizontal knots....lol I told him when first meeting him in 2012 - ''I'll take as big as you can get in that dump trailer,no matter how gnarly/ugly it may be...."

In the past I've gotten up to 40"" Silver Maple (all solid,no hollow trunks),Black Walnut & Black Cherry up to 16-18" (yard trees & most sawmills wont risk touching them for fear of long buried metal) & some beautiful 24" to 38" White Oak less than a 1/2 mile from my house in these old neighborhoods....a ton of excellent thornless Honey Locust in 2012 & 2014 (I have several slabs 24 to 32 wide & 2 to 3 in. thick milled in 2015 that are just about ready to be turned into tables,benches or other furniture)

My latest haul was more big Honey Locust in late March,only a few big pleces have I saved for milling into blocks/slabs for future woodworkiong projects...Being older now & tiring much easier I dont feel bad if I can only spend a couple hoursat a time processing themAnd not every day either,taking more breaks then before.I stop before getting tired & possibly getting some muscle strain etc. Am in no rush now,one more nice thing about being retired (even with a slight cut in monthly income over my past job.My stress level is much less now,health is better also,a worthwhile tradeoff really.

 

I used to head up from CT to Prince Edward Island, Canada with my cousins in an old Chevy van to do the hay each summer. "Square Bales".
The old farm house, where my grandfather was born, was where we'd stay. They had a wood cook stove, and the hot water heater was/still is attached to the chimney piping.
I was hooked.
We cut wood in the summers, stacked it in the wood shed and on the hottest days in July and August had a fire going in the cook stove b/c there was nothing else to cook with.
It was incredible.
My daughter is 10 months old and I can only hope I can create that feeling of existence for her. We have a wood stove in the house which covers our heating needs- but nothing can replace the feeling that comes with knowing you did it all.
Maybe I'm being too over the top-

 

The legendary King Of The Forest - early - mid 70's McCulloch Super Pro 125C,one of my favorite saws to use,this has excellent antivibration rubber mounts with very smooth operation.The engineering on these was way ahead of their time,no other saw in 100cc+ class sold around this time was as smooth as this.Only one close was the also favorite Homelite 750,which was 112cc & wasnt introduced until June 1978,almost 2 years after the Mac 125C was discontinued.

A few more.....About a 1/3rd split/stacked now,will set 2 yrs at least.I've got between 3-4 yrs worth of dry wood here & at parents property ready when needed.Who knows,one of these days I wont be able to use the big saws & roll around those big rounds any longer...I'll cross that bridge when I get to it so to speak...

 

Like most in here, it started early. I remember when dad would fire up the chainsaw and I just HAD to be there. Before we moved from our old house (I wasn't quite 5) I remember helping him move branches as he cut and I was mad at my older siblings for not helping "daddy." Looking back, I'm sure I provided next to no real help but in a kids mind, I was getting a lot of work done!

 

who you calling insane? Luckily most was in the shade and i did feel the effects yesterday!

 

I LOVE IT! Can i use that Molly?

 

Sure thing!

 

Being retired, every week has 6 Saturdays and one Sunday, day of rest. Working a few hours a day if the weather is somewhat nice and not having to work outside if it gets really hot or really cold is an absolute joy. Two to four hours a day gets the job done without doing a lot of damage to the old body thistle , you are doing it right. Carry on

 

I started in the 1970's when I moved to the southern coast of Oregon. I had a single barrel stove in a trailer, with the stack going out the window. Burned not very seasoned Doug Fir that I had almost unlimited access to. And I lived to tell about it!

Then I bought my own place in the mid-1980s in Ohio, which had an old Franklin stove in the living room. It was a piece of junk, but the stack was triple wall, and in good shape, so I put in a good stove and have been hoarding ever since.

 

82 degrees at 930AM.....that's enough for today.