Site Discussions

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.

I would add only one thing to the discussion.  I’m a strong advocate of drying wood for 2 years (maybe 1 and 1/2 with some species).  All the problems of creasote, chimney fires, and chimney cleaning costs are pretty much eliminated that way, plus I believe that you retain more BTU’s that way.  Wood that is not completely dry uses some of it’s own BTU’s to cook off the remaining moisture.  In my experience one year old wood just doesn’t perform as well.

I pretty much agree with most of comments.  Beech is wonderful firewood, although some of it can be tough to split.  With a wood splitter, it makes no difference.  Equal to rock maple I would think.  While green elm is everything you said, if it’s standing dead for a few years before it’s cut, you’ll find it’s a different wood indeed.  I once heated my house for the better part of a winter with a 4’ diameter elm that had been standing dead for a number of years.  I split all of it by hand and almost all it split well, some as good as ash.  My vote for worthless firewood is basswood.  You can sink a maul 1/2 way up the head without even starting a crack.  And it’s lighter than pine or poplar, I’m sure.

Hi Mary, we don’t see any reason not to eat them! They will probably be delicious!

Could you confirm that we are sending fuel oil to “Venezuela”?
I thought it was just the opposite: Chavez sent oil to the U.S. free of charge for use in low income housing units.  At least I saw an ad on tv about it. If it’s true, it certainly wasn’t widely publicized.
thanks.  nice article.

Believe it or not, I don’t mind a bit of poplar in my stovewood mix. It dries easily, splits nicely, stacks beautifully, and ignites quickly. It ain’t warm, but it’s bright, and I’ve got it by the wagonload.

I absolutely agree about the Elm - I had the same thing happen to me…I wondered if there was something wrong with the maul, but unfortunately, there was not.  Didn’t seem worth the effort.

I cut hornbeam rounds—up to 4 or 5 inches across, and sometimes even more—in June, then burn them when the cold weather comes.  They would probably be better if I let them sit a year (I can’t imagine they need a whole 1 1/2), but they do fine as I use them.  Last winter I used almost nothing but.

I was fishing lastnight with my children and boyfriend on the Missisquoi River her in Vermont and I was looking for frogs along the bank while my boyfriend was fishing and I spotted a crawfish and caught it. The kids were thrilled and wanted to keep it as a pet. I got curious and started checking along the entire bank with a flashlight and spotted them everywhere so I grabbed a bucket and gloves and caught about 50 in three hours. My boyfriend used a couple for bait and caught two huge fish right off the bat. The biggest fish I have seen in cauht in the river in my 30 years of life. Anyways after the night was over we packed up and I brought the crawfish home and put them in my kitchen sink for my children. This morning my oldest children got the idea to have me cook them and eat them so I did. I am just wondering if it is actually alright to eat them from the river? I know people eat them all the time in the bayou in Louisianna, but this is Vermont. Are they the same kinda crawfish or are they differant? I am just afraid my children and myself are going to get sick. Maybe I worry too much, but I would rather be safe and sure than have my children and myself in the hospital from eating the wrong food.

I am heartbroken over this.  I’ve noticed this year for the first time, the absence of the wood thrush’s song.  They are here - I’ve seen them.  But they aren’t singing.  They are doing their little chuck chuck noise and that’s about it.  Something is wrong.

Hi Ron—

I think the answer to your question is that the current use program in Vermont, especially as it was originally conceived, is a jobs program more than a land-access program. The idea is to make sure that land is available for forestry and agriculture and all the people those industries employ. Perhaps because land posting was much less pervasive a quarter century ago when the program was designed, it wasn’t directly addressed by current use.

Dave, thanks for the link.  But your response helps prove my point.  Nobody, it seems, is tackling what could be paradigm-changing task:  Bringing the native habitat back to some of the places from which it has been eradicated.  i want to make that the goal of my life.  Wish me luck!  Lots of it.

Why should people in current use be allowed to post the land?

Does the weight / size affect this ?
A 3ft lean, but a 40” diameter 50 ft (a lot of weight), would there be enough strength for one to move this weight with wedges ?

did anyone get back to Bill Smith re: question on the Barnard, Vt. catamount?

A excellent summary of Tom’s book (which I have, and have read).  Succinct, interesting and for me, a beekeeper, useful and meaningful.

Thank you,

Stephen

Had one enter my bedroom somehow and kept it in my handy dandy *bugzooka* for a few days, after identifying it as definately NOT a ALB let it go to freedom on day 3, unfortunately HE took off too quickly to capture a good photo. I have been living here my whole life and this is the first I’ve ever seen, good or bad sign?? 26yrs old. Sighting June 19th, 2011