Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kristin Meredith]

We log our own firewood. We cut the trees down, skin them, haul them over to the house, cut into rounds and then split and pile the rounds. We then burn the limbs skinned from the tree. Bentley has to do a lot of the heavy work, but I can help a bit with my little 10 inch saw in skinning and do a lot of the clean-up, burning and help with splitting and stacking.

We usually go through at least 3 cords of wood each winter and we need to process things a year in advance. So the wood we used in 2019-2020 winter was cut and processed in 2018-2019. We did not have a good 2018-2019 and were scrounging for wood at the end. Over this past winter, we made a good start for 2020-2021 -- but now we have hit a bonanza which may be over two years of wood and save lots of work.

Our part of Virginia was hit hard by the Emerald Ash bore about 3 years ago and most ash trees have been killed. Some are just standing dead wood. Our neighbor, Old House Vineyards, has a big parklike area with many dead ash trees. They had someone come in and cut many of the trees down and skin them, but left them for the vineyard employees to clean up. They told us we could have whatever we wanted. So Bentley has been working for 5 days to steadily bring back the skinned trunks. So much time and work saved!!! No clean-up to do. All we have to do is cut into rounds, split and stack. SCORE!!!!

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

[Kristin Meredith]

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

[ofelles]

That was quite the score. Still some work ahead of you though. 

[pmillen]

I no longer heat with wood because those dead trees in the woods died of something and I don't want to bring that something to my yard trees.

I just bought ¼ pickup load of hickory splits for my stick burner.  The guy who sold it to me said that it was a green tree when he cut it and seasoned it indoors.  But when I got it home and stacked it I saw active insects making little sawdust piles, insect holes in the splits and wood roaches.  That's why restaurants that have wood-fired ovens must buy wood that's been heated to a certain high heat for a certain period to eliminate them bringing bugs into the kitchen.

So, it appears to me that you brought Emerald Ash Borers to your home.  Do you see any risk there?

[Kristin Meredith]

Emerald Ash borers have been all around our house and killed every ash tree within probably 50 miles of us.  I have no ash in my yard, but if I did they would have been dead long before now because if you have an ash within a mile of a borer, it will be infested quickly.  That is why it spreads like wildfire.

I am not concerned about bringing it into the house because it is the eggs, which are deposited into the tree and then hatch into larvae which cause the problem.  The larvae eat through parts of the tree killing it.  When they change to adults, they come out of the tree and fly away to kill some more. That's why they are so destructive, each generation moves from home and moves on. You can't even tell the tree is dead by the time they move on, that takes about 2-3 years to become apparent.

[Bentley]

I do not believe I could face it with out that Spa!  I have used that thing 3 times a day over the last 10 days and all I have been doing is loading wood onto a trailer and dumping it.  I can not imagine what it is going to be like when I have to get these things into 20 inch rounds, then put them through the log splitter...the way I move, it is weeks and weeks of work!  You cant really get an idea of the amount from the photos!  Charging the drone to see if I can do a little fly over!

People talk about getting Dope sick if they go to long without a fix...I feel as though I get Spa sick if I dont get it about every 6 hours!

That was quite the score. Still some work ahead of you though. 

[Bentley]

You see the logs in the middle that are perpendicular to the road, that was day one and two.  I finally said screw this, let me use your dump trailer or I am not doing it.  You can see how the rest of the loads look.  At about the 55 second mark, if you look to the back of the video right in the center, that wood line, that is where these are being taken from.


Dead Ash Wood Fly Over

[Brushpopper]

That sure beats felling the trees and trimming the branches off.  Good thing you have the hot tub to cure your aches and pains.

[pmillen]

Firewood warms you twice...

That's the mother lode.  You may have to hire a high school football lineman to assist.

[ZCZ]

Once those Ash Borers take over the only thing you can do is go out and kiss your Ash goodbye.
(I couldn’t resist).
 
Al

[Bentley]

If I had a lathe, think of all the bats I could make!

[urnmor]

Are you sure you are not in prison as certainly looks like a lot of hard labor

[W6YJ]

Holy cow, that's a lot of wood.

Out of curiosity, what is the crop growing next to it?

[Bar-B-Lew]

If I had a lathe, think of all the bats I could make!

Doesn't matter.  It looks like about a 90% chance there will be no minor league baseball this season and at best a 50/50 chance of there being a major league season this year.

I think it is actually closer to a 100% chance of no minor league baseball this year and a significant chance that MLB cuts down on minor league teams by about 25%+ on a go forward basis.

I also think it is closer to a 75% chance that there is no MLB this year too.  And probably going to impact it like the 1990s strike which may take years to recover.

[Hank D Thoreau]

I checked out Old House Vineyard. It would make our wine tasting stop list.