A warm winter coming....

billjustbill

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You never know what you'll find at a garage sale... Tiffany Jewelry, 14kt. & 18kt gold, ....and Firewood?

Week before last, we went to a sale a day early. It's the one I went back later that day and spending a total of $40, I came home with "lots" and enough brass and copper to pay for everything else. ;>)


As I was leaving after the afternoon return to thesale, I asked about the stack of firewood. The lady said one fellow said he was coming back, but hadn't. I asked if he paid for it and she said, "No, but we've put in on Facebook for $50." Soooo, I paid her. She said it has to go as do the outside buildings, ASAP. I asked if I could come get the wood a week from the coming Monday.... She said, "Well, after the sale is over, it'll take us that long to tear down the outbuildings, but it's got to go by then."


The wood is Oak. It's already cut, and split, and well seasoned so much so, the bark just slides off....and I left it behind. It's exactly 9 miles from our driveway to the wood stack. It took 7 round trips. With a late start Monday morning due to locked gates, it's taken two days to move that amount of wood..... by the time I finished, counting Gas and Gator-aid, it's cost $80. And, not one Copper Head nor even a scorpion in the whole stack..... In the first picture is a 4' high and 8' long metal cattle panel to show the scale of how high the firewood was stacked behind one of the buildings.....


Here at home, I've stacked this wood on 4'x4' wood pallets to keep it off the ground. So, 4' wide, 8' long, and 4' high is a cord. Two 4' pallets in front, and two pallets in the back, then, on top of 2' high firewood, I filled in between them. The stacks are well over 4' high; almost 6 feet tall on the back stack. There is over 2-1/2 cords in the stacks here at the house.... No cutting; no splitting; no tree cleanup.....But, Lots of Ben-gay.....


Bill
 

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Beachkid23

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Well Paul Bunyan, this thread really makes me miss home! I've been in Florida for 10+ years, it's hot as heck here and I would never need firewood ever again other than two days a year! That looks like a heck of a find there for what you paid! Kind of sucks, I love living in Florida but will probably never get to experience any of the stuff I did growing up with my dad and get to show my son. (Poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, and millions of mosquitoes damage all of that dream) not that I don't try but about two hours of fishing or going out into the woods, well, the boy wants the video games!!! Sorry for the rant, awesome find, and I wish I could be there!
 

jerseyben

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Lucky! I bought some firewood back in May but it was less than 1/4 cord. Only paid $5 though.
 

Tallone

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Say, if need any more good oak firewood, I have a whole bunch of it you can have for free:

DSC06435.JPG DSC06437.JPG

Several months ago we had a bad storm come through here. It may have been a mini tornado. Anyway, the storm knocked over one trunk of a huge, double-trunk oak tree. That monster is 30 feet long from the base to where the branches begin and 5 feet in circumference at the base. The storm also blew out the top of another oak on the other side of the property and there is a piece about 1/3 the size of this laying on the ground over there. I have a good Husqvarna chain saw big enough to cut these up but I just haven't been able to muster the energy to take that chore on in the summer heat and humidity around here.

Wish I could find a logger who would pay me for this log. Seems like there would be some pretty valuable lumber in there.
 

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billjustbill

billjustbill

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Thanks for the offer! It was a job just being 9 miles from the house...;>) Your tree trunk is long and straight, and with very few limbs between the base and the first limbs. If the wood was Black Walnut, I'd bet you'd have all the offers you'd want. With it being Oak, using a RIP chain to cut down the length, cuttings of 4"-6" thick and 6ft to 8ft long for fireplace mantels or half those thicknesses for porch swing frameworks, furniture, and table tops would be good for a Craigslist ad....

The sooner it's cut into rough sizes the better. Sealing the end with roofing tar or commercial sealers keeps the ends from checking (splitting) back into the wood. As a "general rule of thumb", It takes "One Year" of air drying for every inch thick, and those 4 & 6 inch thicknesses could take even longer, depending on how stable the air drying storage area is.

I've found and seen some beautiful wood grain patterns in "firewood", and I always moan a bit with I read how up North they cut and use Cherry, Walnut, and Maple like we use Oak and Mesquite for firewood down here.......

It seems that firewood is costly to city Yuppies or Upper Income neighborhoods. But, get them to pay for the saw, sharpening the chains, gas/oil, labor, hauling, and all the heat or cold temps to work in, an appreciation of $250, delivered, for an honest cord of seasoned firewood isn't enough for the guy/gal doing the work!! ;>)
 

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bigcaddy64

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Say, if need any more good oak firewood, I have a whole bunch of it you can have for free:

View attachment 1191157 View attachment 1191158

Several months ago we had a bad storm come through here. It may have been a mini tornado. Anyway, the storm knocked over one trunk of a huge, double-trunk oak tree. That monster is 30 feet long from the base to where the branches begin and 5 feet in circumference at the base. The storm also blew out the top of another oak on the other side of the property and there is a piece about 1/3 the size of this laying on the ground over there. I have a good Husqvarna chain saw big enough to cut these up but I just haven't been able to muster the energy to take that chore on in the summer heat and humidity around here.

Wish I could find a logger who would pay me for this log. Seems like there would be some pretty valuable lumber in there.

I would keep looking for somebody who is interested in that trunk as a material source for furniture.

We had a huge black walnut tree taken down due to disease and had the boards milled on site, seasoned in the back yard and then shipped out to have some pieces of furniture made from it. They arrived yesterday:icon_thumleft:
 

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