How's this for a Score!

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My sister's boyfriend owns about 25 acres on which he lives. He took down a bunch of trees to open up around his house, bring in more light and make use of passive solar. He also had a local logger come in a few years ago and thin out the woods around the property. The logger was supposed to have had a deal to sell to a local mill. But with the crash of the real estate market and very little new home building up this way, the logs have sat. Earlier this fall he told me to come over and take as much as I want. I had not seen his pile, just knew what he told me.

Went over this morning and got the first load. Holy Smokes, guess I'll be busy for awhile! I don't have a truck, just the 5 x 8 utility trailer that I pull with my Outback. So will take a few trips. The pile is a mix of white pine, birch, poplar, oak, maple. Amounts are also in that same order. But, hey, the price is right!

The trailer is rated for 1250 pounds of cargo, I had 17 logs on it. Was guessing that the 8ft logs weighed about 75 to 80 pounds on average. Anyone know of a formula to calculate the estimated weight of a log of given length and diameter?

Adkjake, great, great score!! Also, great exercise.

 

[Adkjake]

Update on tapping this score. I've hauled 8 or 10 trailer loads since first posting this. I've found that what works best for me is to cut the logs to whatever length I can handle for loading on the trailer, run them home, buck them as needed, do a little splitting with the maul, stack. Go back for another load.

I've barely touched the big pile shown in the original post. There's lots of easier stuff to harverst laying around. Like today, there was a good sized pine, 22 inch butt end, dropped on top of a large birch. The birch had to be 28 inches at the butt end. Bucked the pine in to 3 ft lenghts to where it was off the birch. Bucked the birch in to 18 inch rounds. Here's that load.

Here's a shot of the pile of the too be split rounds and what I've split and stacked so far. It's the stack to the right. Cell phone pix so apologies for the quality

 

[Dune]

You are doing it right, take your time and keep doing it. Eastern pine is a good fuel, it is all good wood. Great score, you can get years ahead right off the bat.

 

[bogydave]

Nice pictures
At the steady pace you are setting, you'll have a few year supply in no time.
I was doing the same when cutting in the state cutting area, cut a load or 2, split & stack. Then do it again.
Adds up pretty fast & don't get burned out by just doing one step for days. The last 2 loads I got need split but was to cold to run the spitter, maybe this warm up we're getting I can get it spit.
Good job! Keep the wood & pictures coming (you got some big rounds in the trailer, fun to split

 

[Adkjake]

Yeah, one of the biggest birch logs I've encountered. Only way I could roll them up on the trailer was to cut them to 16 in rounds. I'm most concerned with getting as many loads as I can out of the site ASAP. At some point in the coming weeks the snow will pile up too deep to get back there. Thus the tactic of getting as much on the trailer as quickly as possible and over to my house.

I can then split and stack at my leisure. That and the big score will still be there in the spring.

My sister's friend told me the other day, best offer he got for that pile as $80 for pulp wood!

 

[bogydave]

I got snowed out of the wood cutting area, well the road just iced up & I decided to not try to hauls a loaded trailer up & down some of the bad, slick & narrow turns.
It'll still be there when the snow melts.
I have though about taking the ATV in & cutting some tress & storing them close to the road, but figured someone else may just load them up

$80 ??? WOW. I'm on my way

Looks like you stash is safe

 

[BlankBlankBlank]

Great loads Adkjake! Once you get going, it's so easy to just keep getting more and more wood. I find myself having a difficult time turning wood down. Right now, I've got all my wood for this year, all for next year and about 1/3 for year three. My two year plan is to create wood storage along 100 feet of fence that will be 4' wide and 6' tall with a roof. This will keep my yard clear to have parties and a garden. Meanwhile, 1/2 my yard is full of wood and the other 1/2 is garden. The bottom line for me is I can't seem to turn down wood. The more people find out that I'm looking for firewood, the more firewood offers come my way. Oh, the struggles of life.

 

[woodchip]

Score of the century, I think I'd spend my time hauling it, not fiddling about weighing it........ ;-)