Posted by Billy NY on March 13, 2019 at 15:41:28 from (74.70.73.136):
In Reply to: Nice neighbor! posted by JayinNY on March 12, 2019 at 22:08:50:
Always a good score, dead elm that is, until the trunk is too punked out. Seems the tops will not punk so much or at all, but if dead 3 years, trunk wood changes, easy to cut and split, but having burned both, and there was and still is a lot of it here, I prefer the non punked elm. Sure it is hard to split because of the grain, but there are ways around it. Buck/block it up and stack if you can, let it dry out, split from the stacks and when you line up the wedge, align it with the most significant check/crack, every block will have one. If you don't you fight more of the grain and if you try to split it down small, it will make a stringy mess of some blocks. Another thing is to take planks off the outside, then see what is left, the centers are the worst, so I leave those for overnight logs. This is not processor friendly wood and you will never make fast time with it. Keep a sharp hatchet within reach when splitting to cut the strings.
The benefit is it burns real hot and reminds me of Oak, just burns quicker and the coals might be different. I have a mixture of punk and non punk, have loaded my stove to the top at 9PM, and at 630 AM I have a nice coal bed. Take some of the elm tops I use for kindling, it will roar to life in no time and this wood will turn my flue pipe orange in no time if you don't damper it and reduce the air flow to the fire box. I take all of these trees, very little left behind. The tops and twig ends can get wet but dry very quickly and will always start a fire easily.
I can tell yours is punked but not soft and spungy when wet. I find some of it once too far gone is not worth processing, unless you get it when dry and can keep it covered. If dry it burns well and what the heck, it all burns anyways LOL ! I'm not stingy when it comes to wood cut by my saw, it will get burned in the stove if I cut it.
I never got ahead of it last year, had maybe 3 cord processed, so I used it when it made sense, most has been used, but not all, I had piles in several places, so I gathered up those logs and limbwood. I hauled some nice piles up to the house on my 4630 with the 3 pt forks, cut that up and loaded into my carts, then covered. That bought me some time to get to where we are now. I am good for the rest of the season.
I have been cutting more recently dead elm trees and heading them up this winter, even when bitter cold out, I was ok being dressed properly, so I was able to get close to 5 cord in logs stacked so far and will continue. My 555C backhoe has a thumb, so when I drop a big tree, I use it to stack the logs, then I just pick up the stacks with the forks to get them to where I will process. I took a big elm down along one of the property lines this January, got it before it punked, all good wood. I've got some nice maple blow down up on the ridge and I may have lost a bunch of Ash, some nice size, will see what that looks like. Maybe some saw logs, but good firewood just the same. I enjoy the work, like talking about it, and also enjoy what I have to get the work done. I don't find it cumbersome yet, what is, is the lack of time I have because of my job, so I do what I can seeing I pay the darned taxes, need to get what I can out of it.
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