Odd weather

This winter has been anything but winter, up and down temps, snow, ice and record breaking temp in January. Iv been waiting for the ground to freeze up so I could get some of these dead elms, cut this one down today and made it into firewood. Was great weather to get out and do something, run the saws and the tractor! First winter I don?t have a job working outside and it?s been mild temps.

It's nice to have the ground frozen for logging! Bad winter for the loggers in N MN, too much snow, too warm, so the ground isn't frozen underneath.

It is so sad to see all of the trees killed off by that darn bettle. Hate to say it but THERE is MORE to come. It will get to the point were every native tree is going to be dead. Shame we cannot do a reboot. Gather up all of the good bugs and then spray the begabbers out of the entire north american continent. Kill every single bug. Then reintroduce the native stuff. Does anyone have a magic wand????

I can see the ruts. Ground freezes, then thaws, then in between, can't make up it's mind LOL ! Still a bunch of standing dead elm here, some recent still with bark. I've got several cord in log length on the ground now. Looks like those did not punk too much. Burns pretty darned hot, even when aged like that.

I find the silver maple does that too once punked, burns clean and gives the least amount of ash. Something with this elm ash, it becomes like a heavy crust in the fire box.

Will likely get out there tomorrow, couple piles to process before I can start felling again.

You can see mine besides the wood pile I built it in 1985 total length is twelve foot I can unbolt the wedge move it out on the end and split right foot locust logs for fence post

8 ft locust fence post

(quoted from post at 22:08:32 02/01/20) 8 ft locust fence post

Click to expand...

Bet ol' Abe Lincoln would like to have had that in his day!

Funny you should mention that crust in the ash?s, I cleaned some out of the stove today, I put the ash in a metal ash bucket, you can hear the chunks hitting the metal, almost sounds and feels like coal. Elm is not the best or worst wood, but I?d rather burn it then have it fall down and rot. I counted the growth rings on this one I counted 34! Once I cut the tree down I pulled it out with the tractor, as you saw the ruts from a few weeks ago, I dident want to trip over the ruts, buckthorn and the rest of weedy garbage growing in there.
Still waiting for my load of logs to be delivered! Lol

It will crust over the other ash in my firebox and shovels out in cakes, kind of easier, but you have to break it up to spread out.
I like it best before it punks, more work to split, but it ignites and burns very hot, like oak, just not as long, not as much hot coal left over. It reeks like sileage when split fresh. Some years back, tree service took the remains of my favorite old elm down, think it was 96 growth rings, was a solid 48" across.

Most I have been dealing with here are in the 30-40 year range, and I'd have left every single one of them, but dutch elm seems to have killed them all. I have found buckthorn here so old that you can actually mill it. I have one that is 8" round along the tractor path. They will live a long time if not shaded out, burns really hot too. I saved some and kept dry for years.

Who knows, ground will freeze up again, and or frost come all the way out, that has already happened here. In-between, gets slick or saturated on top until the water can percolate through then the ground is solid again, or so it is in these parts.

Nice temperatures to work in though, not too cold, no wind, certainly no bugs, well except the ticks.

Just a quick heads up for those of you whom have standing dead Elms; if the bark stays on you'll most likely have it turn punky and not dry back to good and usable fire wood. What we do around here is to girdle the dead elms when we see the bark isn't shedding, and leave them standing. Doesn't take much time or effort and works like a charm. Been burning Elm for 30 years now, transitioning to dead Ash now though for some reason -must be a management thing...above my pay grade.

JD