Trolling For Firewood

Since we have had a six-week stretch of amazingly beautiful weather, although to be truthful a day or two of rain would also be nice, I’ve taken some time to go strolling through the woods, trolling for firewood.  Here’s the standing inventory of firewood just awaiting harvest within about a hundred yards of the cabin or barn.  Expend the perimeter farther and the inventory grows proportionally.

Just above the site of the old shack, recently cleaned up and ready for bush hogging itself, is this cluster of trees from a storm last winter.  All tolled I think there are eight long trunks, each around a foot in diameter.  Definitely a couple little truck loads.  I think these were birches but will confirm with my chainsaw.

Along the same ridge line, about fifty yards above the cabin is this magnificent pair of locust trunks.  The tops were snapped off in a windstorm maybe three winters ago.  You can just barely make them out in the picture.  The trunk on the right is massive, perhaps a dozen feet or more in girth.  The one on the left is about eight feet in in girth.  Both will require the manly chainsaw of my pal Bob, who will come and fell them some time this winter.  If the wood is sound I might try to split them into fence rails.  If they are not good for that they will become most excellent firewood, probably two winters’ worth.

The tops of those two trees are laying scattered on the ground and I will harvest them in the coming weeks.  Since they are locust they could be downed for many years and still be good firewood.  This hunk is almost two feet in diameter.

Working west along the same ridge line about 100 yards from the cabin is this pair of mighty big trees, brought down in the same storm as the first cluster in this post.  All of the major trunks are 16″-18″ in diameter.  One is cherry, I cannot recall what the other one is.  Either way that is one honkin’ big pile of firewood.

Moving around to the hill up behind and within sight of the barn is another cornucopia of BTUs.  The first picture is of a maple, the second a cherry, and the trunks strewn about in the third picture are all locust.

I can hardly wait to turn my little chain saw loose on cutting all this up and stacking it in the staging area.  But it has to wait until I get all done with the greenhouse.