Yah, most of that is back east after hurricane Sandy and places in the Midwest that are pumping NG like crazy. I have gotten some wood dropped, but that has always been with loads of wood chips. Wood chips cost money to dump here (rip off recycling; they get money to take the chips and then sell the compost after processing it). So arborists are always advertising for places to drop loads of chips on CL for free.
I call them 'tree butchers' myself. On this forum site there used to be a lot of us pro arborists with chippers and such, and pro fallers. Now its guys with hopped up chainsaws boasting about wood cutting speeds cutting logs lashed to saw horses. As for firewood, no arbor business here that I know of sells firewood. Takes too much time and space. I do know a few that keep the wood to burn themselves, but most post ads on CL for free rounds to be taken on site. Then the wood zombies like me show up and it disappears in a few hours, especially better wood like oak. There are bigger firewood processors out here where I live where a lot of logging is done, and they buy and salvage cull logs that they haul and cut into firewood. Some sell it green to the suckers in the city. Some logging companies here sell cull logs direct to the public. A dumptruck load of green Doug fir & hemlock logs costs $300 delivered. They come to about 2.5 cords of wood bucked, split and stacked. You can also buy a logging truck load of logs for $1200, and that comes out to about 9 cords (roughly 3 cords per MBF, and roughly 3 MBF per logging truck: 1 MBF is a thousand board feet of lumber).
Failing is the path to knowledge and wisdom. I used to go after cottonwood here. No longer. I have a cord of Western Hemlock rounds here and a maul if you wanna give them a whack. I do not think there is any best tree ID book. I like Petersons field guide to western trees. There must be an eastern equivalent? Golden also has Trees of North America that has good drawings and maps of where stands occur. I also have several shrub and tree ID books that are local to the PNW that you would likely never find. No one book has all the trees that I have found and ID'd, especially old world species. For them I use Google.
I've seen some CL adds for free wood chips. I would take them but have no idea what the hell I would do with wood chips.
So what happened with all the pros? Actually it might be a good thing they're gone, I doubt they would have enough patience to put up with someone like me. As for the ported chainsaws, I admit it is a bit dumb. Not going to lie though, if it was cheaper I would probably do it. Just can't see the point in spending a few hundred to speed/power up something that I only use to cut firewood with. It's kind of funny going on You Tube and seeing people test out a modified saw and act triumphant because they shaved off a few seconds from a cut lmao. Thankfully I'm not that crazy just yet.
Hell just about every arborist/tree service I've seen has a yard that's full of split and stacked firewood ready for sale.
If I could get 2.5 cords for $300 I may just buy the logs. Should have listened to my friend and gone with him to Washington. He went to JB Lewis-McChord. I could be enjoying some cheap ass firewood right now and working the snot out of my Makita. I think she's getting bored here.
Oh man I would love to. Just found out MD has eastern hemlock so I wonder how they compare. I think the western hemlock is larger.
I'll look those books up.
Check this app out:
http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2012/12/122012-cnre-treeidapp.html
This is the app I downloaded to my phone. Seems great but the questions are extremely detailed. Like how many branch spur thingies does the tree have? Complex or simple leaves? Fruits? How the hell am I supposed to answer that. If I knew all that crap I wouldn't need a tree ID resource.
We have some phenomenally large trees out here in the west. The tallest and largest in the world. Also large swaths... here is a photo I took northwest of Mt Hood in the Cascades just north of where I live. Hood is 11k+ feet tall for perspective. I live just off photo to the lower right. The majority of green here are Douglas firs. Farther up the slopes are silver and grand firs, as well as western and mountain hemlocks, and western cedars. In the draws are big leaf maples, cascaras, black cottonwoods, red alders, some white oaks, and there are scattered white birch stands. On the east slopes are more Ponderosa pines, larch, and junipers mixed in. There are other species that I am forgetting as well.
View attachment 394548
I've been wondering, why are the trees over there so large? I know the wettest place in the world is in Kauai (I hiked that island once, freaking awesome) so it can't just be the amount of rainfall you receive.
Oh damn I'm jealous. I would love to see that view everyday. I'm living on the wrong coast.