Spent the last couple days processing wood. Man, this is work!
My buddy wanted to move our woodpile, which is considerable, in spite of my smoking like a fiend over the last few months.
He picked up a couple of those light wood racks from someone for $25 each, so we put those together and he left on vacation with his family, so I spent the last couple days moving and splitting our remaining wood down into smaller chunks. I picked up most of this last spring from a local processor who has a tree trimming business (this was the pecan) and driving out to a remote location to pick up a couple of ricks of cherry. Both of these were really in larger splits than I like using, so I've just gotten by toughing it out, but a couple months ago a made a trade and picked up a used gas powered 20-ton log splitter. Even with this thing, this has been some WORK! If I had to split this stuff with an axe, I'd have switched to propane and electric smokers - the hell with that! I don't know how our ancestors managed for thousands of years splitting firewood with an axe - except the fact that they just made people tougher back then, no surprise!
So I moved all the pecan and cherry to the new holding racks, whilst simultaneously splitting it down into more useable splits, that was a lot of work in one day, and it was 92F, felt like 103F. Rough day, and then had to go home, rest an hour and go to the last performance of a local play I got roped into with 1 week before opening (someone had to bow out at the last minute). That was a rough night after all the work on the woodpile, but I survived. Wood pile moved, turns out about 1 rick of cherry left and maybe... 3/4 or so rick of pecan, now into more manageable splits I can use better in the offsets.
Next, to processing the trailer load of maple and hawthorn I got. These were NOT cut down with a plan of using them for firewood, just chainsawed into carryable chunks, so some were large disks, some into logs, a few too long for my woodsplitter, etc. The maple especially didn't come out into the 16" splits you'd want, but a lot of it is now in 6-8" chunks, I tried to get them into 4-6" diameter, but they're not long, like most of us would use in an offset. They'll still work, just smaller pieces, so I'll use more of them - they won't stack perfectly well, either, so I'm going to have to modify storage racks. Probably just put some pavers down and lay rails across them to get the wood off the ground, but spacing will have to be narrow to get the smaller chunks to stay in the rack properly. It'll be a challenge stacking it. Most of the hawthorn is in longer (some TOO long) splits. The hawthorn splits weird, kind of... stringy? I did a little bit of research, supposedly very hard (definitely can attest to this after splitting) and burns hot and long - so maybe more efficient and having to add logs less to the smoker? But also supposedly light and mild smokiness. We'll see when I try it out.
Some pics:
This trailer was stacked to the back of the fenders and about to the top of the rail. It was heavy. I moved all this off myself and split it all. My son came out on Sunday for about an hour - teenagers, always showing up when the work is nearly done. <sigh> Then yesterday it was just me.
Most of what's left on there probably doesn't need to be split, just stacked. Maybe I'll split a few pieces of it, but the majority of the splitting should be done.
This is the hawthorn. Some of them are pretty long - I may break out the sliding compound miter saw, I think I can safely use this to cut the length down on these pieces. Maybe set it up on a couple of sawhorses and chop some of these pieces down.
This is the maple, you can see it's in smaller lengths, the tree was probably 18" at the base and they just cut that into discs from 8-12". Kinda a pain to split into manageable chunks. I think it'll work ok in the smoker though.
Here's the already-stacked stuff. What seems to be a mostly-full rick of cherry in the front (with the far right 10% or less being black walnut in very small splits), the pecan is behind that in the second rack you can just see in the back. It doesn't come up as high, so I think probably about 3/4 rick of pecan.
A pic of the whole scene of the battlefield::
The hawthorn is in the upper right of the pic, the maple to the left. In the lower right, that is all bark that fell off as I was splitting it - need to take the tractor and put the bucket on it, haul it out in the field to the burn pile. Guessing a couple of buckets' worth of trip for that.
I'm not a great judge of the amounts here - maybe someone else can guide me, I am THINKING I have maybe a half rick of the hawthorn here (paid $20), and I hope a full rick of the maple, maybe a little more. I'd like to say a rick and a half, but I think that's probably overestimating it (paid $50 for the maple).
I really don't want to do ANYTHING today, but I also don't want to sit around and waste the day on nothing. So I think I'm going to get my butt up and go out and work on this some more for a few hours. <sigh> I really think putting this post up is just a way for me to put it off and avoid it a little longer. lol. But I better get my butt up and get to work - again. Tomorrow the holiday is over and I'm back at the office for the rest of the week, just able to work on this woodpile after office hours. If I want to get this all cleaned up and looking presentable before my buddy gets home in a week, I'd better get a good bit of it done today.
My buddy wanted to move our woodpile, which is considerable, in spite of my smoking like a fiend over the last few months.
He picked up a couple of those light wood racks from someone for $25 each, so we put those together and he left on vacation with his family, so I spent the last couple days moving and splitting our remaining wood down into smaller chunks. I picked up most of this last spring from a local processor who has a tree trimming business (this was the pecan) and driving out to a remote location to pick up a couple of ricks of cherry. Both of these were really in larger splits than I like using, so I've just gotten by toughing it out, but a couple months ago a made a trade and picked up a used gas powered 20-ton log splitter. Even with this thing, this has been some WORK! If I had to split this stuff with an axe, I'd have switched to propane and electric smokers - the hell with that! I don't know how our ancestors managed for thousands of years splitting firewood with an axe - except the fact that they just made people tougher back then, no surprise!
So I moved all the pecan and cherry to the new holding racks, whilst simultaneously splitting it down into more useable splits, that was a lot of work in one day, and it was 92F, felt like 103F. Rough day, and then had to go home, rest an hour and go to the last performance of a local play I got roped into with 1 week before opening (someone had to bow out at the last minute). That was a rough night after all the work on the woodpile, but I survived. Wood pile moved, turns out about 1 rick of cherry left and maybe... 3/4 or so rick of pecan, now into more manageable splits I can use better in the offsets.
Next, to processing the trailer load of maple and hawthorn I got. These were NOT cut down with a plan of using them for firewood, just chainsawed into carryable chunks, so some were large disks, some into logs, a few too long for my woodsplitter, etc. The maple especially didn't come out into the 16" splits you'd want, but a lot of it is now in 6-8" chunks, I tried to get them into 4-6" diameter, but they're not long, like most of us would use in an offset. They'll still work, just smaller pieces, so I'll use more of them - they won't stack perfectly well, either, so I'm going to have to modify storage racks. Probably just put some pavers down and lay rails across them to get the wood off the ground, but spacing will have to be narrow to get the smaller chunks to stay in the rack properly. It'll be a challenge stacking it. Most of the hawthorn is in longer (some TOO long) splits. The hawthorn splits weird, kind of... stringy? I did a little bit of research, supposedly very hard (definitely can attest to this after splitting) and burns hot and long - so maybe more efficient and having to add logs less to the smoker? But also supposedly light and mild smokiness. We'll see when I try it out.
Some pics:
This trailer was stacked to the back of the fenders and about to the top of the rail. It was heavy. I moved all this off myself and split it all. My son came out on Sunday for about an hour - teenagers, always showing up when the work is nearly done. <sigh> Then yesterday it was just me.
Most of what's left on there probably doesn't need to be split, just stacked. Maybe I'll split a few pieces of it, but the majority of the splitting should be done.
This is the hawthorn. Some of them are pretty long - I may break out the sliding compound miter saw, I think I can safely use this to cut the length down on these pieces. Maybe set it up on a couple of sawhorses and chop some of these pieces down.
This is the maple, you can see it's in smaller lengths, the tree was probably 18" at the base and they just cut that into discs from 8-12". Kinda a pain to split into manageable chunks. I think it'll work ok in the smoker though.
Here's the already-stacked stuff. What seems to be a mostly-full rick of cherry in the front (with the far right 10% or less being black walnut in very small splits), the pecan is behind that in the second rack you can just see in the back. It doesn't come up as high, so I think probably about 3/4 rick of pecan.
A pic of the whole scene of the battlefield::
The hawthorn is in the upper right of the pic, the maple to the left. In the lower right, that is all bark that fell off as I was splitting it - need to take the tractor and put the bucket on it, haul it out in the field to the burn pile. Guessing a couple of buckets' worth of trip for that.
I'm not a great judge of the amounts here - maybe someone else can guide me, I am THINKING I have maybe a half rick of the hawthorn here (paid $20), and I hope a full rick of the maple, maybe a little more. I'd like to say a rick and a half, but I think that's probably overestimating it (paid $50 for the maple).
I really don't want to do ANYTHING today, but I also don't want to sit around and waste the day on nothing. So I think I'm going to get my butt up and go out and work on this some more for a few hours. <sigh> I really think putting this post up is just a way for me to put it off and avoid it a little longer. lol. But I better get my butt up and get to work - again. Tomorrow the holiday is over and I'm back at the office for the rest of the week, just able to work on this woodpile after office hours. If I want to get this all cleaned up and looking presentable before my buddy gets home in a week, I'd better get a good bit of it done today.
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