Work Done In 2020

[thewoodlands]

Yes, that is an awesome feeling! But firewood work/exercise never stops

I was hoping for more time in the boat this summer but the water levels in our area are very low for this time of year.

But yes, I'll still have plenty of work to do in the woods or around the house.

 

[heavy hammer]

I will get some pics but I ended up cleaning up a large section of my woods where my wood is at and cleaned up and cleared more area to have grass and more places to stacks and store wood. It was a busy weekend.

 

[thewoodlands]

I will get some pics but I ended up cleaning up a large section of my woods where my wood is at and cleaned up and cleared more area to have grass and more places to stacks and store wood. It was a busy weekend.

If you're looking for some cleanup work, I can keep ya busy.

 

[heavy hammer]

Not really looking for more I just had the time since everything is still closed. Nothing better than finally having the time to do the things at the house and good weather.

 

[Diabel]

Maple that came down last fall, plus a small ash that was dead and partly blocked the main access road. I will double this with some hemlock and yellow birch, then split it, stack it and it’ll be ready for 2023-24 maybe

 

[EODMSgt]

Since you can never move firewood enough times (insert sarcasm there), and @thewoodlands was making me feel lazy with all his posts, I decided to move about three cords of rounds about forty feet just for the heck of it (2nd pic). Actually, there is a method to the madness. I had started gathering the rounds when there was still a couple feet of snow on the ground, and I began stacking them in an easy-to-access spot out back. I kept gathering and adding to the stacks (1st pic) as recently as this weekend.

Well, plans change. The goal now is to get about five dump loads of fill to make the area behind the tractor useable (3rd pic). Difficult to see in the picture but it drops off about 3+ feet there so it's just been a wasted space filled with scrub brush. I will gain a lot of real estate once it's done and be able to hopefully store about seven cord of CSS firewood there, which will leave the center area open for processing.

Of course some will ask "why didn't you just split the rounds instead of moving them again?" Trust me, I thought about it, and I did split all the ash and a lot of the (dead) red oak, and added that to the existing stacks to the right (each stack is now roughly 1.25 cords). However, the goal is to put all of the splits from the rounds in the newly acquired area once that location has been filled and graded. So if I split the rounds now, I'll still have to move everything again. And besides, it was good exercise and having done a career in the military, I am also used to doing things which make absolutely no sense but sound good on paper.

 

[thewoodlands]

Since you can never move firewood enough times (insert sarcasm there), and @thewoodlands was making me feel lazy with all his posts, I decided to move about three cords of rounds about forty feet just for the heck of it (2nd pic). Actually, there is a method to the madness. I had started gathering the rounds when there was still a couple feet of snow on the ground, and I began stacking them in an easy-to-access spot out back. I kept gathering and adding to the stacks (1st pic) as recently as this weekend.

Well, plans change. The goal now is to get about five dump loads of fill to make the area behind the tractor useable (3rd pic). Difficult to see in the picture but it drops off about 3+ feet there so it's just been a wasted space filled with scrub brush. I will gain a lot of real estate once it's done and be able to hopefully store about seven cord of CSS firewood there, which will leave the center area open for processing.

Of course some will ask "why didn't you just split the rounds instead of moving them again?" Trust me, I thought about it, and I did split all the ash and a lot of the (dead) red oak, and added that to the existing stacks to the right (each stack is now roughly 1.25 cords). However, the goal is to put all of the splits from the rounds in the newly acquired area once that location has been filled and graded. So if I split the rounds now, I'll still have to move everything again. And besides, it was good exercise and having done a career in the military, I am also used to doing things which make absolutely no sense but sound good on paper.

Very nice and neat area you have @EODMSgt , that fill will make that area even nicer.

 

[thewoodlands]

This is from todays splitting, all the stacked Ash is from the first tree I felled with about five more nice size rounds left. I'm not sure if it will fill out that two face cord stack but it still gave us some good firewood.

I still have three more Ash on the backhill that need s & s along with the three up top.

 

[thewoodlands]

I split two more loads and almost finished the stack, I never reset the t-post on the right side of the stack so I'll take some of the Ash off of that end and reset the stakes near the end of the splits.

I did get the next stack ready (two face cord) and then moved the splitter out of the gully to a new area. I loaded up the tub with a load of smaller rounds with the intent on s/s them but the wind gust were pretty good so I called it a day.

Picture 0331 is the splitter beam after I cleaned it off with some WD-40 Degreaser, 0332 is the first load, 0333 is the flagpole from the stacking area, 0334 & 0335 is the punky Cherry that is in the middle the gully I don't think I'll touch, 0336 are some damaged birch that need felling (bent over) , 0338 is a load of rounds heading out to the new splitting area at 0339.

 

[kennyp2339]

Everything is now topped off, about 4 years ahead now. Curious to see how my cylinders of shorties holds up, that 72” fencing from tractor supply.

 

[EODMSgt]

I've been eyeballing this (healthy) beech blowdown about a mile up the road from me for the last few months but wanted to wait for the snow to finally melt before tackling it. Someone already scavenged most of the smaller good stuff from the crown however they didn't touch the trunk. In all fairness, it's up a 35-45 degree incline (steeper than it looks in the picture) and the base was about 22 inches in diameter, so not something quick and easy to get. Luckily it was uphill for a change so the rounds were easy to roll to the trailer. Ended up with 21 large rounds and a few of the branches. Not a bad haul for a couple hours of work.

 

[thewoodlands]

I've been eyeballing this (healthy) beech blowdown about a mile up the road from me for the last few months but wanted to wait for the snow to finally melt before tackling it. Someone already scavenged most of the smaller good stuff from the crown however they didn't touch the trunk. In all fairness, it's up a 35-45 degree incline (steeper than it looks in the picture) and the base was about 22 inches in diameter, so not something quick and easy to get. Luckily it was uphill for a change so the rounds were easy to roll to the trailer. Ended up with 21 large rounds and a few of the branches. Not a bad haul for a couple hours of work.

View attachment 260001View attachment 260002View attachment 260003

Nice get @EODMSgt , that will make for some nice heat which makes it well worth the effort.

 

[thewoodlands]

Since the area where these rounds was pretty tight, I decided to haul the rounds out (3 loads) to the new splitting area and stack it.

Attached are some pictures, near the end of my stacking the wife came out with our dog (Australian Kelpie) we rescued from a kill shelter in another state through Helping Hounds out of Syracuse about three years ago.

Once this last stack is finished. we'll have 53 face cord up.

 

[thewoodlands]

I split two of the ash trees up top that I felled a few days back.

Picture 0350 is getting setup on the first ash (nice out) 0352 is the ash split,0353 is getting setup on the second ash,0354 it's split and I took 1.5 loads off the hill to finish the stack which was all the splits from the first ash.

It was a crazy weather day, we started out with some sun and some good wind gust with snow, the trees were talking.

I think that I posted we had 53 face cord up, it's actually 55. The area I'm stacking has 8 face cord stacked but will hold 12 so I'm thinking I'll fell a few more ash and go for the another 4 face.

We had 24.2 this morning.

 

[SpaceBus]

We were hoping to work outside today, but the rain turned to high winds turned to blizzard, so staying inside today.

 

[heavy hammer]

I hear you guys I worked right off the lake the last week and the wind and cold the last two days has been brutal. Nothing fun about twenties and thirties in May. Guys said the real feel this morning was 23. Plus the wind 100' in the air is tough, makes for a long day.

 

[Diabel]

The plan was to process some wood today. Way too windy to drop dead trees nor cut dead fall under canopy. Decided to bring the 40yr old utility trailer are replace the rotting floor boards.
Happy day!

 

[SpaceBus]

I hear you guys I worked right off the lake the last week and the wind and cold the last two days has been brutal. Nothing fun about twenties and thirties in May. Guys said the real feel this morning was 23. Plus the wind 100' in the air is tough, makes for a long day.

the wind here was brutal here today. we lost power for a few hours

 

[kennyp2339]

Snow day today, went on a fire call earlier and made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots, looked at the stove as she burned ash & oak

 

[heavy hammer]

Spacebus, kennyp2339, it seems everyone was having the same lousy weather. Winter just doesn't want to let go yet. Power back on Spacebus?

 

[EODMSgt]

it seems everyone was having the same lousy weather. Winter just doesn't want to let go yet.

Snow in mid-May and extreme winds weren't optimal for doing much outside however I have to disagree that it was lousy weather. I'm one of those that if it snowed 12 months out of the year I would be ok with that. Will be checking for any new blowdowns today but just took in the scenery yesterday and enjoyed another day with the fire going.

 

[SpaceBus]

Spacebus, kennyp2339, it seems everyone was having the same lousy weather. Winter just doesn't want to let go yet. Power back on Spacebus?

It came on after a few hours, no big deal. The snow has already melted.

 

[EODMSgt]

Nice get @EODMSgt , that will make for some nice heat which makes it well worth the effort.

Thanks @thewoodlands. I don't usually get a score like this when scrounging so I was pretty happy with it (especially since it's beech, my preferred firewood of choice). Since I'm still burning, I'm not really getting ahead however this load should finally get me in the right direction. Currently I should be at around roughly 8 cords CSS and 3 cords (+ or -) in rounds.

 

[thewoodlands]

Yesterday when I cleared some trails of dead pine, I noticed this maple mother nature topped off so I bucked it up today. I also bucked up an ash tree I felled a few days ago

Picture 0359 is part of the maple on the ground, in picture 0360 you can see what was left standing of the maple which I took care of, 0361 is the maple bud from the tree,0365,0366 and 0367 are some maple rounds and the rest are of the ash.

 

[thewoodlands]

We have one ash down that's not bucked up, two up top that are c/s so since nothing is leafed out yet, my plans are to fell 2 to 3 more ash tomorrow and call it a spring for the felling.

If I get another 4 face cord out of all that, that will give us 12 face cord of ash and another 6 face cord of beech,ironwood,sugar maple and some soft maple for this spring.

The boat batteries are in so we hope that the boat will get used more this year, the water levels are low for this time of year so some rain would be nice.