To answer a couple questions. Yes I do measure everything to length. I have a mingo marker but really use a 25' tape and my kids sidewalk chalk more. I get poles from jobs I work on and am fortunate to be able to take the nicest and straightest for my self and I sell the other poles. I really like red oak and thats mostly what I try to get. It cuts nice, splits great, and is a great burner. I sell to all sorts of people but mostly to occasional burners that may only buy a 1/3 of a cord. They seem to like everything being the same length and nice wood.
I am very anal about my stacks,probably to much but It also makes for good advertising when people come to get their wood or when I take pictures for ads. It's easy to tell it's not a bunch of twisted up narly stuff.
I have a yard near my house (Where the wood is) it's about 150 yards from the house with a good road into it. I very seldom if ever spend an entire day on firewood. Mostly an hour here or 2 hours there. I can't spend an entire day. I get bored and my back will start hurting. But I can really give her hell for those couple hours. I work hard and fast. Many times when I'm working up red oak I don't even fire up the splitter. I will just split by hand. I can be wicked fast for those two hours
But then I will move onto another project.
I also never work firewood in the mud. Snow all the time and doesnt matter how cold it is but I hate dirty wood. I found that I get way more done in good conditions and better all around results and less aggrevation.
The key is to having a place on my own property. If I had to drive to get wood it wouldn't be much fun.