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woodbooga

woodbooga

cords of mystic memory
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
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Location
Between Gonic and Chocorua
I estimate that about 1/3 of my winter burning is salvaged from local roadsides. I've been gathering for years and no one has ever given me a hard time (I follow basic ettiquette - I don't stop in front of houses, nor do I haul off any wood thrown on the far side of a stone wall - a non-verbal code in NH that the landowner has indicated to the electric/phone company or local road agent that he wants the wood).

Curious if there are any fellow scroungers out there who have ever had an encounter. Up this way in the Lake Winnipesaukee are of NH there are pronounced economic disparities. Lots of rich folks with lakeside megamansions living in proximity of folks who rely on wind storms to free up fuel for winter heating - a literal windfall.
 
woodbooga said:
I estimate that about 1/3 of my winter burning is salvaged from local roadsides. I've been gathering for years and no one has ever given me a hard time (I follow basic ettiquette - I don't stop in front of houses, nor do I haul off any wood thrown on the far side of a stone wall - a non-verbal code in NH that the landowner has indicated to the electric/phone company or local road agent that he wants the wood).

Curious if there are any fellow scroungers out there who have ever had an encounter. Up this way in the Lake Winnipesaukee are of NH there are pronounced economic disparities. Lots of rich folks with lakeside megamansions living in proximity of folks who rely on wind storms to free up fuel for winter heating - a literal windfall.
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I have scrounged, but most of the time, it's in the winter when there's no roadside grass, but most of the time the plow trucks get them too full of sand for me to want to go near them before I even spot them.
 
For me, this is prime time for scrounging. A winter's worth of deadfall freshly revealed from the melted snowbanks (We got 120 inches this year - second most on record) and before the ferns and other vegetation come into full leaf, so visibility is great.

Only twice has a passerby stopped - last week, someone looking for directions to a paintball course located out in the puckabruch on a gravel road in Barnstead, and another time when a guy offered for me to follow him to his property where he had a stack of brush to pick thru. Yielded a truckload (Ford Ranger) of 2"-6" two to six footers. Yee ha!
 
I've done it abit. always makes me abit nervous. You can actually buy a salvage permit here for 20$. I allows you to salvage off of crown land thats been clear cut and everyoen has left. I think your aloud upto 6 cord a year.. I just moved out into the counrty and have been taking little sunday drives with the dogs making notes of where there's some good wood laying around.
 
TreeCo said:
I wouldn't hesitate to knock on the door and ask about wood. Sometimes it's spoken for and sometimes not. Often homeowners want the small wood but not the large. If I weren't in the tree business and in need of wood I might go so far as to print up some business cards saying 'I heat with wood!'.
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Ah! A doorknocker. I've done that when a good supply prime wood is conspicously in front of a house. Scored a load of maple recently but learned a comparable pile of ash was spoken for. Hey, if you don't ask, the answer is always no. I've scored some good scap aluminium and copper in this way too - but that's a whole thread altogether. And for a completely different forum.

Life on the margins of our economy is quite the adventure!
 
Gotta love the dump

In addition to roadsides, I frequently am able to get a decent charge of wood from the brush pile at the local dump (actually, what we politely call the transfer station these days).

The attenants there are pretty good, in spite of a sign that reads "no dump picking per order of the selectman." I have a real problem with this "per order" since pickin is, to my lights, an affront to a great American tradition. Might as well declare mandatory flag burning. :angry:
 
The utilities around here routinely leave wood from downed trees. It's unspoken permission to save them the dumping problems. I wouldn't go in front of someone's house, of course, but there's plenty that isn't. Got probably a cord of good red oak after an ice storm last winter.

The highway department lately is on a binge getting rid of Ailanthus around here. It's been amusing to see how quickly the neat stacks of rounds disappear. If I saw them on the way to work, they were gone by the time I came home.

I used to assume it was junk wood, but I tried a bit last winter. Not too bad, perhaps a bit better than poplar.
 
BlueRidgeMark said:
The highway department lately is on a binge getting rid of Ailanthus around here. It's been amusing to see how quickly the neat stacks of rounds disappear. If I saw them on the way to work, they were gone by the time I came home.

I used to assume it was junk wood, but I tried a bit last winter. Not too bad, perhaps a bit better than poplar.
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Thanks BlueRidge for the info about Ailanthus. One of these was cut at a convenient location for me aout 2 years ago, but I passed on it. I'd heard that it stinks real bad. I've since learned 'taint true and some better-informed and more opportunistic wood-booger got in there and snatched it up.
 
The leaves stink, but I've never noticed any smell to the wood. I had a bunch of them at one house I owned, and took them all down. Had no fireplace or woodstove, so eventually gave the wood away.
 
Ailanthus

Good to know. Not too prevelant in northern New England outside of urban areas and wastelots where their prolific seeds take root along side sumacs and box elders. I'm not too picky about scent, though I do love the smell of apple, cherry, and that root beer aroma of birch.
 
That is how I get all of my wood. Not that I burn as much as most of you guys. I have already picked up some Cherry, Honey Locust, and Maple this year. Split and stacked almost two face cords. The only problem I run into is that the lengths of the rounds all over the place but for free I can't complain. Live in a suburb of Chicago so the only forest around here is forest preserve I don't think that cutting down any of that would go over that well.
 
Good times!

I have gotten a lot over the years from the "roadside" or local compost sites, etc. To me, it is actually more "fun" to get a select score of wood like that rather than a ton of wood at a time. Must be something similiar to finding some neat items at a flea market rather than buying bulk items at the huge "discount" warehouse. Happy scrounging! :greenchainsaw:
 
I scrounge when I can. Some of the logging trucks lose a log or two now and again and they just lay there on the roadside looking all forlorn and alone ... I just can't seem to bring myself to leaving them all by their lonesome.

I talked to our Conservation guys here and their position is that the wood belongs to the pulp and paper company so no permit is required. The pulp and paper company is not really interested in nickel-and-diming those logs, so they are freebies.

I have to talk to the company again tho as sometimes the overweight trucks have to dump logs at the scales. Sometimes they have to dump 6 - 10 sixteen foot logs and I'd like to get the okay to scoop up that wood as well.

My neighbor works for the utility company (Manitoba Hydro) and every so often they clear trees along the roadways. I imagine that it would save them some work if I was to go and get the larger logs, but I want to make sure before I start grabbing that stuff. As a matter of fact I think I'll email him right now. :D
 
Funny how scrounging varies by region, demographics, forests.
In northern Massachusetts suburbia, there was plenty of roadside scrounge; but you had to work it year-round. Get to know the crews, the developers, surveyors, arborists. We'd get 1/2 or more of the 4-5 cords used a year for full-time wood heating. If the stash was too big, it was party time for a few saws and pickups. The rest of the firewood we bought green CSD in late winter or spring. Many weekends were spent working a pile of cut trees.

Now it's luxurious having our own woodland to work, when I want to, how I want, trees I want. Besides, here in Maine there are too many of us that use firewood and harvest their own. Not much hereabouts on any roadside to scrounge. Enough of suburbia.:givebeer:
 
I have scrounged wood in front of apartment complexes and rest homes that tree services have cut and stacked. I have got a few load's of wood from homeowners that had it stacked in front of there home. Sometimes I drive around town and see free wood signs on a pile of wood and I go back and get some if I go back in a few days there is only large rounds left. I got some from lot clearing projects I would ask the foreman for some. I saw a large pile maby 50 cords get pushed into a pile with a dozer and loaded into a tub grinder. They were using it for [ best management practices ] I sure have gotten a lot of great ideas form all of the posters on the forum thanks :clap: David
 
I get wood out of the ditches from when the power company has the trees cut back from the lines. If I spot them cutting, I'll go back later and see what they've left. Sometimes I get some and sometimes I don't. I don't want to get in their way when they are working.

A funny story: A couple of years ago I was taking my boy to karate at night and I spotted some wood in the ditch on the way. I marked the spot in my mind and figured I would get some on the way back. On the way home I pull over and survey the logs. I proceed to load them into every spare space in my 03' Chevy Cavalier. Including the 2/3 of the back seat that my boy wasn't occupying.

A not so funny story: I'm on the way to work at night with my empty trailer. Spot wood in the ditch and since I'm running early I pull over. The rounds are cut to 18-20" or so. I can't lift them, about 18". I figure I scored some good solid hardwood. Put down the ramp and roll up what amounts to about 1/2 of a 5x10' trailer worth of wood. Get to work and bring a guy I work with out to ID the wood, I really suck at this unless there are leaves on the tree. Cottonwood-soaking wet and green.
 
AandAbooks - That's a lot of effort for Cottonwood.

I was helping out a friend/boss last spring. Wind had taken down a very tall ( 100+ ft ) Cottonwood on his place. It was hung up, wedged in a couple of other trees resting at about 20 degrees off the ground. I agreed to get it the rest of the way down and on the ground so it was safe. Once it was down I started in bucking it to 8 foot lengths. I was coming back that weekend with a trailer and winch to roll the logs up onto the trailer and clear it off his property. Before I got back somebody saved me the trouble. His wife calls up and thanks me for doing such a marvelous job getting it out without tearing up the lawn. So much for taking it to the mill.

Oh BTW never take on a job like this. Next time they will have to call a pro. Hang-ups fall where they want, not where you expect. After 3 very close calls I thanked my maker I was still all in one piece and hugged my kids when I got home.
 
woodbooga said:
I estimate that about 1/3 of my winter burning is salvaged from local roadsides. I've been gathering for years and no one has ever given me a hard time (I follow basic ettiquette - I don't stop in front of houses, nor do I haul off any wood thrown on the far side of a stone wall - a non-verbal code in NH that the landowner has indicated to the electric/phone company or local road agent that he wants the wood).

Curious if there are any fellow scroungers out there who have ever had an encounter. Up this way in the Lake Winnipesaukee are of NH there are pronounced economic disparities. Lots of rich folks with lakeside megamansions living in proximity of folks who rely on wind storms to free up fuel for winter heating - a literal windfall.
Click to expand...

I take exception to scroungers who do not ask first. Around our property and on our property we have had big problems with "scroungers" who help themselves to trees or fallen trees that are on our property. Just because we do not live there, but we do have area posted does not allow others to help themselves to a tree that may have come down during a storm or that has died. We use that wood or try to sell it ourselves, have you thought of that.?
That is theft and the sheriff office is looking for that.

A real funny story when we were pulling logs out out of our woods near the state road 20 years ago. There was about 2 ft of snow and we were using a modified toboggan with angle irons bolted to it so we could load several 6' logs on it. We then sent it down the road embankment to the truck and trailer. It was a .5 mile (one way) trip back and forth over several hills and around many trees. It was back breaking and it took several hours to fill the trailer and van. A sheriff deputy stopped us and asked us if we had permission to take the wood. We said yes as family owned the land, he took info and confirmed it. He then said anyone going to that much time & trouble with the wood haul method we were using had to have owned the land.:hmm3grin2orange:

Tree thieves usually are much quicker and usually getaway with the crime though. Just like the deer poacher who left most of the deer and carcass on out driveway entrance. Driving along a country road with private property alongside it does not allow you to take the wood even if there is nobody to ask!
 
RCR 3 EVER said:
I take exception to scroungers who do not ask first. Around our property and on our property we have had big problems with "scroungers" who help themselves to trees or fallen trees that are on our property. Just because we do not live there, but we do have area posted does not allow others to help themselves to a tree that may have come down during a storm or that has died. We use that wood or try to sell it ourselves, have you thought of that.?
That is theft and the sheriff office is looking for that.

A real funny story when we were pulling logs out out of our woods near the state road 20 years ago. There was about 2 ft of snow and we were using a modified toboggan with angle irons bolted to it so we could load several 6' logs on it. We then sent it down the road embankment to the truck and trailer. It was a .5 mile (one way) trip back and forth over several hills and around many trees. It was back breaking and it took several hours to fill the trailer and van. A sheriff deputy stopped us and asked us if we had permission to take the wood. We said yes as family owned the land, he took info and confirmed it. He then said anyone going to that much time & trouble with the wood haul method we were using had to have owned the land.:hmm3grin2orange:

Tree thieves usually are much quicker and usually getaway with the crime though. Just like the deer poacher who left most of the deer and carcass on out driveway entrance. Driving along a country road with private property alongside it does not allow you to take the wood even if there is nobody to ask!
Click to expand...

I am with you bro!

What exactly is differant between someone taking wood from my farm land or in my yard? There are far far too many people around who think any unoccupied property is open range and I get tired of running them off:chainsaw:

Please ask first people!! If nobody is home to ask then leave it alone.
 

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