Is it just me or is spring the best time for gathering wood? I realize I live in a place that is basically wood stove heaven. I have 5 acres, 3.5 is wooded with mostly oak and black birch, but a little bit of everything else thrown in. Our property, whcih is quite rural, is adjacent to hundreds of acres of conservation land owned by the town. That land is pretty much landlocked, there are a few trails for mountain bikes, snowmobiles, but basically its for nature. And its mostly hardwood. Now lest you think I'm cuttin that hardwood, my wife and I just pulled in about three cords of nothing but oak from about an acre of that conservation land adjacent to our property, and all of it was lying dead, not even standing dead! Spring is the time to do that, the ground is still frozen, the leaves are all matted down so you can see it, no leaves on the trees so lots of sun to dry it quick if you prop it up off the ground. For me, spring is the time to refuel, start thinking about a couple of winters from now. And then today was one of those days when the world just works great for you. A listing on craigslist for an apple a guy just took down, (got that one!) Bam! a listing for cordwood, turns out its 8 to 10 cords of 1 1/2 year old mostly black locust with some sugar maple and white oak thrown in, 4 'to 10' lengths, 6" to 24" diam. "please take it now cause its in my way, knock yourself out", only 8 miles from my place. I got close to three cords this afternoon with just a little saw work. Then on the way to pick it up, the road crew is taking down trees, (mostly oak and maple) along side the road, opening up the road sides, so much free wood, all I can do is look at it and call my friends hoping they can take advantage!. So all of a sudden, in the last ten days, I've just taken possesion of a total of close to 7 cords of lying dead oak, close to 2 years seasoned black locust, with a little apple thrown in all just for the pickin. Life is good! I'm calling it quits for collecting wood for a while cause I got a lot of processing to do! And I'm pretty much set through 2010. Now, a quick question, I need a splitting maul. Any suggestions?
I like your stradegy, get it when you can. I don't play around with splitting. I have a Timberwolf 20-ton with a 4 way split. It is the lowest model they make for homeowners. You can split faster than you can stack. My saw is a 18in Stihl MS290 Farmboss in a 3 chain rotation. (2 standard, one "sharp"). When you process that much wood, don't kid yourself, tools are your friends and doing it by hand will kill you......
nly cost me $50.00 cash, one thumbnail, two scabbed shins, and a sore back.-T :shut: ired and lovin' it!
