It's fall and time for.........Chainsaws, Ye Haw!

I'm with y'all.
I've been heating with wood since the blizzard of '78(?), lost power for 4 days and decided I wasn't going to get bit again.
Been using a poulon 20"er for the last 16 years and it's fine for my needs.
I don't have my 25 acres in any conservation plan.....taxes @ 400+ a year is cheap enough for me 'specially after having to pay 25hundred a year for 4 acres back in jersey.
The firewood of choice around these parts is hedge apple, aka osage orange, braintree, bodark...burns like coal. One thing about harvesting hedge, you're going to bleed! Guaranteed!
We've got some elm thats been hit with the blight, barkless, dead standing. One in particular is a monster.
I believe elm is a choice wood for working, sculpting...don't know.
My last trip out on the ridge was to drop some red cedar, juniperus virginianis ? for cutting into siding. Need to get out and secure firewood for this winter but at a constant 90 degrees daytime highs I just can't get motivated.
G...I'm jealouse of your stacks, where do you find the time?
 
Osage orange was the first choice wood for Indian bows back in the day.

If I had enough land to plant trees on, I've thought it would be fun to have trees from historic sites or other significant places. Like pick up a couple of maple seeds when you visit Gettysburg, pick up a couple of acorns when you visit Mt. Vernon, some seed when you find your family's old homestead and so on.

Would also be good to have fruit and nut trees - recoup you tax expenses with the food they produce with no maintenance.
 
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^ Yep. An Osage bow was worth a good horse.
The sooner you plant the fruit and nut trees the sooner you get the rewards.
I'm a fan of the chestnuts...got quite a few planted, mostly chinese and a possible chinese-american cross that I brought out with me from jersey. Zero maintenance is what I like.
 
They're trying to get that cross established as one way of overcoming the blight, as you know. My favorites are walnut and apple. Apple because there are so many things you can do with it. Walnut for the taste. Messy to get the hulls off, then you need to let them age for a couple weeks before you crack them. Leave the green hulls laying and every squirrel in town will come over when the scent gets in the air. On the property next door there are two apple trees that must be 30 ft and bear very heavily. It's rental property so they aren't maintained at all but still do fine.
 
That ain't workin' that's the way we do it in the Wisconsin back woods!
Now that I am 4 years out it's no more work than cutting for this year and the wood is 3-4 years dry. I only cut when the woods is dry and cool. Rich means different things to different folks. It took about 9 years to get the racking the way I wanted it and filled.
I have heard about Osage Orange sounds awesome. I have seen it has the highest heat value of any wood. None of it around here though. I get mostly oak elm maple and cherry. I like the idea of planting fruit and nut trees too.
 
xjwmx said:
Osage orange was the first choice wood for Indian bows back in the day.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression it still was for wood long bows. Because of how hot it gets I was always taught it wasn't a good wood for heating. But that was with a brick and motar fireplace. A free standing or one of the newer units that stand away from the house and has forced air may be different?


nj,
Elm is tough to split but makes a reasonable wood to burn.
With the thousand canker diease the it looks like the Walnuts time may be limited.
 
Yeah WR, still preffered for bows. It's a heavy, dense wood.....yellow to lime green in color when first cut, turns to red then to brown, chocolate and then black over time once exposed to air. Related to mulberry.

Sparks like crazy, not to be burned in an open fireplace or Tipi HA!

Thousand canker, eh? Well that sucks. May have to sell some black walnut. I'se gots lots.
 
I actually live about 15 miles from a grove of American chestnuts, some of the few survivors. Due to their isolation at the far edge of the native range they never got the blight that killed the rest of them. I read the wiki on the resistant breeding program it sounds pretty hopeful.
 
That's cool G. It'd be nice to secure some nuts for sprouting.

The family still has one back in jersey that was planted about a hundred years ago, American, but it's blighted. It still throws suckers that get about 15 feet tall before they get the cankers. It flowers but there's no mature tree to cross pollinate.... yet. We planted a chinese about 5-6 years ago and hopefully in the next couple years we'll have the first nuts from both trees. Due to the time involved, these projects become mult-generational.
 
With the new van too nice for the woods, I had to go back to buying beater Dakota wood haulers. Just got this one patched up to run.
First truckload this year
received_678489165860828.jpeg
9 more loads to go.
 
Doing yard work yesterday. No need for my chainsaw yet but I was downwind from my next door neighbour cutting up some old trees.

Nothing better than the smell of a 2 stroke in the breeze on a nice crisp fall day!
 
robinc said:
Doing yard work yesterday. No need for my chainsaw yet but I was downwind from my next door neighbour cutting up some old trees.

Nothing better than the smell of a 2 stroke in the breeze on a nice crisp fall day!
Click to expand...
I do so agree, Robin.
I recall the months following my exit from kart racing about 10 years ago when I had many gallons of racing fuel left over. Very high octane CAM2 racing fuel mixed with Redline 2-stroke oil. The fumes from my Stihl chainsaw were simply intoxicating for a long while. Strong resemblance to ganja. :)
.
.
 
gggGary said:
With the new van too nice for the woods, I had to go back to buying beater Dakota wood haulers. Just got this one patched up to run.
First truckload this year
View attachment 128154
9 more loads to go.
Click to expand...

Gary you old lumberjack you! Between all that wood splitting and taking care of horses and maintaining that big old barn full of motorcycles and all that fresh clean cold Wisconsin air, it’s no wonder you think nothing of hopping on a forty year old motorcycle and riding 900 miles!
Jeeze......I feel like a mushy old city boy.
 
Gary if you need some more wood gas up the Dakota and drive south a few hours.:rolleyes: Saturday afternoon a rouge wind came through and brought down part of the neighbors tree. It did the trifecta, took out power, phone and cable. Got power back Saturday night. Spent yesterday helping neighbor clean it up. There's a mulch company close by and they said they would take the big pieces. If you get here first you could have them.:laugh2:
8.PNG 9.PNG
 
Did a truckload each of the last three days 1/2 cord a load, haven't broken the rusty truck frame YET. A humongous ASH tree from state park fell across a friends fence line two years ago. It took a hickory a cherry and an oak with it. Think I've got about 4 cords out so far, with maybe one or two more to go, FULL cords not face cords.
Yesterday after cutting, hand splitting, loading in the truck, then into the racks a 1/2 cord load, my wife calls and sez go pick up a wagon load of hay, o_O so we put 109 bales up in the barn loft. If it don't kill me, it'll make me stronger. :sick:
Between the wood and hay I drove and copped a Craigslist older Stihl 028 that "starts but won't stay running" for $65, Cleaned it up some, ran the mix screws in and out riched it a up a bit and it idles, revs, and ripped through a bar length chunk of ash no problem. :bike:
Way back we used to run big control line model airplanes with castor oil methanol fuel. Still :love: that caster oil smell.
 
gggGary said:
.....hand splitting,
Click to expand...
OK... now you're jus' showin' off.... :boxing:
For my 60th birthday, I bought a log splitter....
81PMABogj3L._SX679_.jpg

gggGary said:
Way back we used to run big control line model airplanes with castor oil methanol fuel. Still :love: that caster oil smell.
Click to expand...
Now that brings back some memories :D
 

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