Sunday afternoon found us on the neighbor's property, cleaning up yet more storm-downed trees. It is a nice thing to have good relationships with your neighbors; this particular one told us several years ago that he didn't mind if we hunted the north section of his woods and we also could have any dead/downed trees in that section. He doesn't heat with wood, and would rather let us have the trees while they were still usable than leave them to rot away.
While we had been in our North Corner the weekend before dealing with some downed trees, we noticed several very nice black cherry trees as well as dozens of small oaks that were either blown over, snapped off and hung up, or just plain dead on the ground in the neighbor's woods. DH had a hankering for the black cherry--it burns very well--and so we made a foray north of the property line with the chain saw.
First we had to clear the way to the cherries. . .there were three or four smaller trees leaning in the way. We cut those into lengths and made a stack.
You would think we would be sick of cutting trees and stacking wood after that, right? Nope! We turned our attention to a nearby section with many small oaks.
That area also had lots of briers, so we had to drag most of the trees to an open spot in order to cut them up without getting ourselves shredded by thorns. Even so, I ended up having to do surgery on DH's hand on Monday to remove an embedded thorn with my instruments of torture. . . er, I mean, my surgical instruments specifically for splinter and thorn removal (corsage pin, alcohol--rubbing alcohol, not the drinking kind, although anesthetizing DH with a bit of the latter isn't a bad idea!--and a pair of tweezers).
I was tractor operator for most of the tree dragging, until the ground got too soupy and DH wanted to go after a much bigger oak--about 18" diameter and 60' long or so. Then I happily took on the job of hooking the chain around the tree while he did the driving (and avoiding a large deep puddle with the right rear tire).
It was a good several hour's work, and a whole lot of free firewood for future winters.
When heating with wood only there is never too much firewood. We don't heat with wood alone anymore but had a cabin in the Sierra Nevada's several years ago that had only a wood-stove for heat and I can knowingly say there is never too much wood. There is also nothing that compares to the consuming warmth that comes from a wood fire.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the yummy smell of wood smoke on a cold day!
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