Seanbear
Burning Hunk
Oh........then hell youre good to go. It can only get drier from here. Thats a lot of wood it looks like!
Show Us Your Wood Shed
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Ashful
Minister of Fire
Moved 1 cord of wood to the 1-cord rack at my carriage barn today, so I have something sitting on high ground, in case I need to replenish what's kept on the patio, when the ground is too soupy to tow the trailer down to the main wood lot. In the process, I came across what appears to be a crime scene inside my 4-cord racks. Not sure what animal was murdered here, but must've been larger than a mouse, to spill this much blood:
![[Hearth.com] Show Us Your Wood Shed](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/302/302201-683d1152f10e880a707fd702c688d8c0.jpg?hash=kW6QgR_aP7 "[Hearth.com] Show Us Your Wood Shed")
This was between rows 3 and 4 in my usual 4-cord racks:
![[Hearth.com] Show Us Your Wood Shed](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/302/302202-b7a5ede147cde4009d6a63e91c2bf962.jpg?hash=pfUKIzNycU "[Hearth.com] Show Us Your Wood Shed")
This was between rows 3 and 4 in my usual 4-cord racks:
Cool. What predator would that have been, I wonder, getting between the stacks.
No hairs to identify prey?
No hairs to identify prey?
Ashful
Minister of Fire
No evidence, that I found. In fact, I kept looking at it, trying to convince myself it was staining due to something else, but I couldn't come up with any other reasonable source. This wood has been stacked here 3 years, so it could have happened that far back. There was one mouse nest, and while this is too much blood for one mouse, I guess it could represent a mass homicide of the entire nest by one predator.
lml999
Minister of Fire
Thanks for the suggestion.
The rear is pretty well supported, although in retrospect I probably should have put the 4x4s behind the horizontal boards.
On the right side, the wall will be shared with a storage shed, will have plenty of support there.
On the left, I've got one vertical 2x4 on the outside. This is probably the wall that is most likely to have issues, so I'll take a look at adding a couple of supports, maybe diagonally...
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I may have an idea on the identity of the victim, for the crime scene above. I had noticed a mouse nest in this area while pulling off this rack, which is nothing unusual, I always find nests. I had written it off as unrelated, since no mouse has anywhere near enough blood to account for what I saw here.
But note that there's blood on one split, then none on the one above it, then more two or three rows up. All too random to be from a single event, it seems. I think what we're looking at must be the sum total of several separate kills from the same nest, which would explain the random dispersion of evidence.
What mouse predator could get into such small spaces is an interesting question, certainly no cat, and you'd think mice could outrun a snake inside a wood pile. This is in the middle of four rows, mostly butted up tight against one another, with never more than 1.5" gap to stack around a diagonal brace between rows 2 and 3 (which is where this was).
But note that there's blood on one split, then none on the one above it, then more two or three rows up. All too random to be from a single event, it seems. I think what we're looking at must be the sum total of several separate kills from the same nest, which would explain the random dispersion of evidence.
What mouse predator could get into such small spaces is an interesting question, certainly no cat, and you'd think mice could outrun a snake inside a wood pile. This is in the middle of four rows, mostly butted up tight against one another, with never more than 1.5" gap to stack around a diagonal brace between rows 2 and 3 (which is where this was).
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I thought of that, but I've never seen a wild ferret around here. Of course, I've never seen a rat either, but I know they exist, from reading the newspaper. Do ferrets eat mice?
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I'm just excited to finally have an empty bay in these new wood racks. Scaling down from 30 cords CSS'd three years ago, to just 17 now, I have had a too-long break in my wood splitting and stacking. Logs are piled up everywhere, dating back to 2020, and I'm really itching to get back to splitting and stacking after such a long break.
Lol, me too. I'm looking forward to this spring. After the early-covid "getting 3 yr ahead" in one go (only 8-9 cords total for me), I have been burning wood that did not go in the new shed last season, so nothing to fill up. This winter I'll be burning from my shed, so this spring I can have at it again. Build some muscle again ;p - hand splitting.
I had some minor pine felled, bucked, split, stacked (at a friends place) this year, but that did not satisfy the itch.
I had some minor pine felled, bucked, split, stacked (at a friends place) this year, but that did not satisfy the itch.
whatyousmokin
Member
I am not a forensic crime scene specialist and don't play one on tv, so pure speculation here. Maybe a hawk had a small critter like a rabbit in his clutches and as he was flying towards your stacks he dropped it. The downward trajectory put it in the middle of your stack... ? Some species of hawks can fly up to 50mph in flight. But I would expect to see a bit of animal fur around what would be point of impact, unless it was a big snake he was carrying.
Another remote possibility: birds eating mulberries or other berries and pooping on fly over. Bird poop can be very runny (imagine if that bird poop pictured here was tinted reddish color from berries).
![[Hearth.com] Show Us Your Wood Shed](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/302/302380-ab5328cb5380c9c5a79aebb761ae49af.jpg?hash=RkxfQWoIDt "[Hearth.com] Show Us Your Wood Shed")
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whatyousmokin
Member
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Now this is exactly where I hoped we were heading! Only thing better would have been if you had included possibilities for the paranormal.
whatyousmokin
Member
Well, you did notice this a few days after Halloween, eh? 😈👻Now this is exactly where I hoped we were heading! Only thing better would have been if you had included possibilities for the paranormal.
Yes. Better than going to the (other) ballistic disasters waiting to happen.Now this is exactly where I hoped we were heading! Only thing better would have been if you had included possibilities for the paranormal.
whatyousmokin
Member
Dan Freeman
Minister of Fire
I built it. Thread over at https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/gthomas785-massive-wood-shed-build-progress-thread.192354/
It's 24' x 8', about 10-12 cords depending how full I dare stuff it up to the rafters..
lml999
Minister of Fire
I don't have the balls to stuff a wood shed from a ladder. My hat is off to you!
Dan Freeman
Minister of Fire
Great! Thanks for the link. I like to see projects from soup to nuts with pics. I usually do the same thing and then make a video of all the pics set to music. You did a real nice job on that!
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