Wood Wood Everywhere

[Hurricane]

It seems that wood is getting easier to score where I am these days. I scored a whole truck load of almost seasoned maple from a guy who posted a flier at the post office. He said it was oak but I did not complain. It was cut split about 18 months ago and the contractor wanted too much money to remove the wood. The guy even helped me load it. I did need to haul it about 100 ft out of the woods I used a handtruck and it worked great. The two pics of with the truck is this score.

Next score I am going out with the wife Sat night and noticed the Public Works guys just cut up a large oak and have the wood cut into fireplace lengths and just scattered on the side of the road. My wife looks at me and says do not even think about stopping you can come back tomorrow. I think that stuff will be gone quick so I call my buddy who is low on wood and never hear back from him. Sunday morning I get up early and go over to see if it is still there and there is still a good load there so I loaded it up. I think it is red oak, it seems like they cut two trunks down one dead one one live. What a hell of a time I had loading them by myself. I actually flipped the large logs on top of smaller ones then flipped them onto the tail gate without having to lift them. This is the pic on the ground with stacked wood in the background.

A few weeks ago I see a older guy trying to move some logs to the street and stopped to see if he needed help. He is moving the logs to the street hoping someone will take them. The tree was cut last Oct and they froze to the ground before he could move them. So I helped the guy out and backed my truck right in and loaded them. The guy and I were pretty happy. Another red oak score. This pic is the logs on the ground with nothing behind them.

I have two years C/S/S and am not really looking but I cannot pass up a good score.

Oh and on my way home Sunday my buddy is pulling out of his driveway when I am passing and I stopped and he says nice load of Oak and I said this is the wood I called you about yesterday and the look on his face was like I screwed up.

 

[Hurricane]

Somehow I missed the last pic.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Hurricane, that is a great score. btw, that does look like red oak to me and not maple, so that makes it even sweeter.

 

[mayhem]

Amazing. Around here there is almost nothing to scrounge, even with the damage from the ice storm. Everyone has either started burning wood, is selling it for profit or wants you to take the tree down right next to the house and grind the stump in exchange for hte wood.

I see occasional piles of wood on the side of the road, but I cna't bring myself to just helping myself...feels too much like stealing without explicit owner permission.

 

[wldm09]

Everyone around here heats with wood so you have to be really on the ball to catch free wood. I am thinking of upgrading to a truck from my Tahoe so that I can be ready, 24/7!

 

[Arlo]

I hear ya, my scrounging has paid off this year. I've alrady got close to 2 1/2 cords. Most of it from a construction site that I asked to pick from and then a "dumping area" behind a local bowling alley.

Today on my way to work there were four big rounds of red oak on the side of the road. I hung a u-turn and grabbed those bad boys in my dress shirt. LOL Gotta love free wood! I feel it has become an addiction for myself.

 

[flyingcow]

Nice deal, stuff looks good. One small observation, sorry to be nit picky. Are you running the same tires that came with the pickup?(noticed they seemed to be squatting a little) If so, and i'm sure you been around the block a few times, upgrade 'em to 10 plys. Yes they ride a little harder, but they'll take the punishment. Hold up a lot better in the woods, or in yards where you can catch a stump or bad rock. Don't slice as easily as LT tires. It helps to keep pressure down when empty, pump them up to recommended psi when getting wood. Will take the extra load at road speeds, and won't squirm as much.

 

[gpcollen1]

Nice deal, stuff looks good. One small observation, sorry to be nit picky. Are you running the same tires that came with the pickup?(noticed they seemed to be squatting a little) If so, and i'm sure you been around the block a few times, upgrade 'em to 10 plys. Yes they ride a little harder, but they'll take the punishment. Hold up a lot better in the woods, or in yards where you can catch a stump or bad rock. Don't slice as easily as LT tires. It helps to keep pressure down when empty, pump them up to recommended psi when getting wood. Will take the extra load at road speeds, and won't squirm as much.

Ditto on the tires.

As for the scrounging - this is the time of year boys and girls. get yer butts out there...

 

[Hurricane]

Good observation with the tires. I did replace the tires but never put the 10 ply. I had a GMC 2500 with 10 ply as my wood plow truck until this winter. I sold it to my friends son who wanted to plow and I did not any more. So the next set of tires for this truck will be 10 ply for sure.

 

[flyingcow]

Good observation with the tires. I did replace the tires but never put the 10 ply. I had a GMC 2500 with 10 ply as my wood plow truck until this winter. I sold it to my friends son who wanted to plow and I did not any more. So the next set of tires for this truck will be 10 ply for sure.

So you been there done that before. I don't do much heavy hauling with my 1/2 ton, but still out of habit put 10ply's on. Was about 45 miles away from the house on the family's wood lot, last summer. Cut down and blocked up hardwood. Piled/stacked up as high as the cab(have a fenced in headboard with rails) and sloped each row towards the tailgate. Still about 1 block higher than the tailgate. I've only got a dodge quad cab, 6 1/2 bed, but still had a good load on. Handled excellent. Tires will hold up good when I drive out of the back of the wood lot. Have even ruined LT tires just driving empty going hunting.

 

[Wet1]

Nice looking driveway.

 

[MrEd]

Here is a sweet deal for you, if you want some free wood. If your bring your own workers, and chipper along, this generous person will let you chip up all their brush in exchange for the chips.....lol.

(broken link removed to http://westernmass.craigslist.org/grd/1141350971.html)

 

[Hurricane]

Thanks on the driveway, it was a lot of work. It took me 13 days with 4 of us. Almost 5000 sq ft.

As for the brush I will pass, I do not use kindling any more

 

[pulldownclaw]

:gulp: hh: :gulp:

Those are some honkin' rounds in the back of that truck! You must have been sweating it heading home like that...hope it was close by.

 

[firefighterjake]

. . .a guy who posted a flier at the post office. He said it was oak but I did not complain. . . ..

I find that there are a lot of folks out there who really aren't very good at tree identification. Late last Fall the Town paid a company to take down a very large, dead elm on my property. The town then paid a guy to clean up the wood . . . before I could let them know that I was interested in the wood. To make a long story short, where I live everyone knows everyone and my neighbor across the road was able to tell me how made off with most of "my" wood . . . I called the guy and spoke with him and told him that I was burning wood and really wanted the wood. He claimed he was going to burn wood next year so I compromised . . . figured he had cut up quite a bit of the wood so I told him I would just take half of the wood and he could have half . . . figured it was a Solamon Deal . . . and this is where it got good.

At that point he thanked me and said something about burning up the oak next year. I told him I was pretty sure it was elm and he said he was pretty sure it was oak. I would love to see him when he starts to split up his "oak" this Spring or Fall since I know the less seasoned wood at the base was wicked stringy!

 

[Hurricane]

The wood was about 2 miles from home with those logs, and all back roads, so nice and slow.

I must admit that wood identification is not always cut and dry. If you have the leaves from the tree it makes it easier. With bark it is difficult depending on the age of the tree and conditions where it was growing. I mean some are easy like white birch, cedar, most pines, but sometimes the hardwoods get tough. I do not really care because I burn wood and it is all wood to me.

 

[mayhem]

Thanks on the driveway, it was a lot of work. It took me 13 days with 4 of us. Almost 5000 sq ft.

How does it hold up to winter and plowing? I'd love to do that to my driveway, but I'm leery of using pavers for fear of having to replace 100 of them every spring.

Looks awesome though.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The wood was about 2 miles from home with those logs, and all back roads, so nice and slow.

I must admit that wood identification is not always cut and dry. If you have the leaves from the tree it makes it easier. With bark it is difficult depending on the age of the tree and conditions where it was growing. I mean some are easy like white birch, cedar, most pines, but sometimes the hardwoods get tough. I do not really care because I burn wood and it is all wood to me.

Hey Hurricane, the leaves don't help me as I've never really paid much attention to them except for maple and oak. I usually tell what it is by looking at the bark rather than leaves.

And it is nice to know what wood you have unless you just want to burn a mixture all the time. We like the hardest for nights during the cold of winter and the other during the daytime and Spring and Fall. Sometimes if we cut a lot of different trees we'll also stack it separately so as to be able to grab what we want without looking through the pile.

 

[Hurricane]

Mayhem,
I put a rubber strip on the bottom of my plow ( a strip from a horse stall matt ) and it works fine. I have plowed it without and never had a problem, but feel safer now that the rubber is on the bottom of the plow.

Backwoods Savage,
I know some guys stack different woods separately but I stack it all mixed. I keep ~1/2 cord in the garage and bring the wood in the house from there. I take the large hardwood splits when filling up the garage piles and separate them for night time burns. So I do separate after dry but not when stacking outside.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Hurricane, that works good too. It is essentially what we did this past winter and will do again next winter because when I stacked it all I sort of stacked it with how we would burn it. It all worked out great too as there was more maple than anything else with a good bunch of ash for nights. Some cherry and elm also mixed in. We've got another stack just like it for next winter.

I'm finally back to stacking our wood. So far I'm working on the 5th cord and there should definitely be another 2 or 3 cords and maybe more. I'm tired.