Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[MustangMike]

Light rain all morning, on top of the snow, now it stopped and is getting colder. The crust on the snow won't keep me up yet, but the dogs don't go through it. Supposed to get near 0* F here tonight, and very windy. May put a portable heater in the garage (which usually does not freeze) just to make sure the water pipe for the outside faucet does not freeze.

Most of the trees here look like they are made of glass, and I cleaned up a few branches that came down. My little White Pine tree seems to be taking it the worst, looks all bent over and wilted!

 

[square1]

You have overhead or underground power? Hope the ice doesn't bring down lines! Zero degrees & power outages suck.

 

[Deleted member 150358]

The caddy will fit on the trailer tongue or rides in the bucket. Trailer now has taller tires for better clearance and an offset hitch so the wood splitter tracks in the same lane as everything else. Can configure the backblade between the tractor and trailer now for when I want to put on a one vehicle parade View attachment 698168

My tandem is too big to take off the trail. But I am gonna use it eventually when I get access to the woods from the neighbors field on the south end. Otherwise I am gonna clear another road that was actually a township road pre 1920's but it still well defined (if you know it was a road) and would open a lot of oak cutting up. Just cleaning up down and dead stuff would keep me busy for a very long time.

Was thinking if I mounted the small 3pt boom in the barn... I could make a tool caddy with a cable on top. Pick and go drop. Need a log tongs then it would make working alone dragging smaller logs out easy.

 

[cantoo]

Even though I'm south of JustJeff it was still darn cold here. -18 C or 0 F today and extreme cold predicted. Wind chill of -35 to -40 C or -31 F. I did manage to go back and haul home 2 loads of logs but in all my excitement I forgot to take pictures. I also got stuck in snow drifts twice. Ended up having to drive across a frozen ploughed field that was a nice slow bumpy ride. I think I'm getting close to calling it quits for the bush this winter, sooner or later I'm going to get stuck bad enough to call a neighbour for a pull. It going to get mild and melt again on Wednesday then cold again so maybe we will finally get some snow too. I can always start cutting logs into rounds for spring campfire wood sales if I get bored. I really hate the cold and because of some past finger injuries I have 2 that freeze pretty easily and the thawing is not something I like to experience very often. I'm just as stubborn as my Dad and when he was my age he got stuck in a snow storm and walked home 15 miles wearing just steel toed workboots. Couldn't take his boots off when he got home and by the time they got him to the hospital the next day ( screaming aside) the damage had already been done. Over the course of the next 2 months they had to amputate all of his toes and until he died 25 years later he had problems with them everyday. That isn't going to happen to me. I have all kinds of wood stacked up and ready to feed the OWB.

 

[KiwiBro]

Make sure we see the slabs, that’s a heck of a hunk of wood.

had to cut them to about 13' to lift.

 

[JustJeff]

That would make a wicked harvest table!

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[Jeffkrib]

Franklin River trip 8 days on the river. Each boat had 200 - 300 kg of gear at the start

 

[Jeffkrib]

Cheese platter every day when we arrived at camp.


Day 4 of the trip the boys pull out vacuum packed steak... yum

 

[95custmz]

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Hope you had a fun trip. Looks like you ate well.

 

[Jeffkrib]

Kiwibro, If the bark were smooth I’d say lemon scented gum.

 

[al-k]

1:50 in the am, dog would not stop barking. So I'm up to put some wood in the stove, -1 out now. Maybe she was trying to tell me something.

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

Had to engage the secondary air control to get to 70° in the living room today.

70F makes my toes cold! lol... I like 72F better. and even warmer in front of the fireplace...

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

That would make a wicked harvest table! Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

right! certainly some beautiful wood. nice grains... and nice cut, too!

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

Franklin River trip 8 days on the river. Each boat had 200 - 300 kg of gear at the start View attachment 698250[View attachment 698255

looks like some ruff goings! I bet everyone enjoyed chow call... and slept well each night! very well....

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

mountain and forest level foresty work can yield some mighty productive scrounges. always amazing to me so see some of the work being done in this thread! even good rural can pale compared to some of the forestry based scrounges... and large acerage standing timber that has come down. and urban, unless on an arborists list etc... can leave one scratching pine needles wishing they were timber limbs... lol. to be a successful scrounger in a city one must be active, prepared and always vigilant... this tall oak dropped a nice 30' limb the other night when the cold winds came roaring thru...

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

she sent down a sizable limb head first, it stuck 6" into the ground... then the weight and downward motion broke it up.

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

with my trusty logging rig and trailer... I cut up the sections into manageable pieces. and hauled them on down to be processed into firewood... 7 sections 4-5' long, 4" +/- diam


man! - those sections were heavy! lots of BTU's still in there...

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

once I had the sections all cut up into the size chunks I wanted... I decided to make my oak firewood stix by splitting them by hand! oak can be tuff to hand split, but these weren't too bad given the age of the wood. perfect for my outdoor fireplace use. it was a great afternoon to go scrounging, running the saw and bustin' up the wood. and oh yeah... not a bad day once done to

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

and mr Brutus was as happy as a lark!

 

[JustJeff]

-21C/-6F this morning. Last night I loaded the stove with 3 big chunks and stuffed smaller pieces in the nooks and crannies. I don't know how cool it could have been this morning. My wife got up before me and I heard the damper slide open, by the time I got up 45 minutes later, there was a heck of a fire going and its 77° in the living room!!

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