Site Discussions

I have eaten quite a few this summer. They are delicious and have not made me sick. They are actually very nutritious.

The first time I ever saw a Spotted Sawyer was in the mid to late 90’s in Greenville ME. I did hold it but it never bit me. I have seen them numerous times since then in the MooseHead region of ME, never have been bitten. I recently moved to Millinocket ME. from MA. In June I saw the beetle again on my car in Millinocket. My neighbor was with me and said he had been bitten more than once by these beetles. He said they were more painful than a bee sting.

Is the black birch susceptible to nematodes or other diseases?  Is it considered a ‘dirty’ tree?  I am looking to plant a fast growing clump in my backyard and want a healthy, fairly clean tree.  I remember this tree while growing up in the woods of Pennsylvania.  How will it do in southeastern CT on the shore?

For our family, camping is the ultimate summer activity. After a busy school year, kids require immersion in the woods. Akin to riverwalking, we love going to the more remote Vermont State Parks and swimming in the small, clean lakes and ponds. The parks also have excellent dirt roads for biking, and many of them have nature programs and hikes with a park naturalist. Just returned from an extended trip to Brighton State Park…recommended!

Your article brings back so many memories.  We’ve enjoyed several camps in the Maine woods over the past 20 years and have been lucky enough to have a stream out our back door at two of them.  Some of our most memorable times are when my husband and I would take off up the stream and “rock hop” as we called it during low water.

Now that I am getting a bit older it seems a bit more difficult and treacherous. I am hoping that my 9 year old grandson will carry on the tradition for another generation as we enjoy showing him the pleasures of such a great activity away from all electronic devices - but at a slower pace!

I have three grades of sneakers, and they follow this progression over time: The first are ones that can be worn in public. The second are ones good for mowing the lawn and working in the garden. And the third, dedicated solely (no pun intended) to river walking.

The ultimate leisure activity is, of course, kicking back in a hammock or in a lawn or deck chair and just watching the world go by.

For active leisure, we paddle—and if you choose your body of water right (especially at low-water time of summer), there’s plenty of wading involved!

Note to river walkers: We now have to be careful about spreading things like “rock snot” and invasive plants/critters between waterways, with our shoes and boots as well as boats.

Nothing beats a hot,hazy summer day than an evening river walk. A call to the dog, and we’re off, walking up the road and then down into the Kennebago River. Splashing along, hearing coyotes calling,evening birdsong, the river itself. The day melts away, your mind settles and relaxes. And I never see another soul.

Hey Veronica, check out this article from our summer 2009 edition: http://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/the_buzz_on_pollination. If you are still confused, send us a pic!

I am a great fan of baseball and firewood, so your anology works good for me. I agree with all you say about the different hardwoods for wood burning. On my lot I am fortunate to have lot’s of beech. Although thinning large beech can be challenging with it’s knarly, sprawling, twisting branches, cutting it allows me to save the much more valuable hard maple, yellow birch and ash. Once back at the landing spliting beech is not an issue with my wood splitter. The key with the other lesser firewoods is when you burn them. I to stack my woodpiles so that when January comes I’m in to the best. I always process a few popal blowdowns if there still solid enough to burn as the October nights get chilly. It takes the chill off but doesn’t drive you out sweltering. And finally, please if your going to cut a solid elm tree, don’t waste it in the woodstove, I’d love to use it in my woodshop

Have observed a “bee”, or impostor on my garden flowers.  It looks like a honeybee, but is almost twice as big.  It also has a large round head.Does anyone know what this is?  Thanks in advance.

Was totally stuck until I read this, now back up and rnunnig.

I agree w. Mark Hutchins, the smaller, dead, bark falling off, elm is my emergency wood in the spring. Burns fine, keeps me warm, just wish the smoke smelled better.

Beech is great, not as dirty as some of the “rough” barked trees. Can be a real pain to split, especially the butt end. I’ve made a few 150 lb blocks of kindling before I desingate it to the bonfire pile.

Black locust burns well, nice heat, the coals tends to pop when you open the stove door to reload the burn chamber. Sparks and embers flying out the door tend to get your heart going.

Ash and soft maple make up my “spring and fall” wood.

I do have a tough time burning bitternut hickory. Burns too slow in cold weather to keep the house warm without opening the draft up enough to burn up the grate. So my son gets all of it from my release and fence row cutting.

Ihave collected assortment of old 1@two man crosscut saws and would like all the knowledge i can get about filing, setting etc. I am a trail maintainer on the finger lakes trail and am trying to convince others to ditch the chain saws

I’m surprised that you did not reference the well known ‘Firewood poem”, author unknown, to me at least:
There is an old poem on firewood which to some extent holds true.

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut’s only good they say,
If for logs ‘tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.

Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last,
it is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E’en the very flames are cold
But Ash green or Ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
keep away the winter’s cold
But Ash wet or Ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.

A firewood poem says this about elm;

Elmwood burns like churchyard mould,
E’en the very flame is cold.

This is really interesting. Thanks for the information!

We buy our firewood cut and split, so have no idea what we’re burning most of the time, although we can recognize a few pieces. We also use a wood gasification boiler to heat a 5,000-gallon water storage tank which then heats the house via radiant heating, so we need a different sort of burn than a wood stove. We can also burn softwood.

What we’ve learned is: Every load into the boiler has a different dryness quotient and BTU!

The absolute worst to split is tupelo (black gum) - run the other way if someone offers it to you. The guy who sold me my my first cordwood in New England must have recognized his chance to hide some in the load. In an attempt to split one, I buried a wedge in one end, then buried my other wedge in the opposite end without even the starting crack of a split.  Had to throw the whole log in my fireplace to get my wedges back.

That must be a reason one often sees ancient tupelos in red maple swamps, with no other trees that size - once they’re too large for rounds, forget it!

I burn most any hardwood and cut it in winter without sweat running in my eyes, mosquitos, black flied and deer flies.  On 60+ acres there is always plenty of freshly dead standing trees.  I skid logs over the snow and cut them up in my back yard.  The snow gets too deep for my tractor.  My land is wet so there is not much time to work without leaving ruts.

Years ago I burned a lot of elm.  The smoke stinks and the grain is like rope.  I bought a splitter along with three other guys, two have since died.
 
I like white oak best about when the bark starts to loosten.  Now there is plenty of ash.  I recently used a lot of poplar that was cut to clear for a wind tower.  It made good firewood the first year but rots quickly.  I don’t have any locust or hard maple in my Rotterdam woodlot but some in Purling.  I have burned quite a bit of sasafrass. I also burn apple and even storm damaged wheeping willow from my front yard but most of that went into my 100 yard range bullet stop.

If you look at heat value per pound as opposed to per cord you will see a somewhat different picture.  I do most of my splitting with a maul.  Anything that is too knarly to split with a second or third whack gets thrown aside for the splitter which I use a couple times a year.