Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[USMC615]

4 cords of aspen CSS today. Chucker is a man of steel. The 550 did all of the bucking duties.

Kick ass...you guys rock and rolled!!!

 

[zogger]

Can't be that cold can it? It's been a beautiful day here. I'm going camping this weekend with the family and dog right after a full day of scrounging tomorrow.

Oh yeah almost forgot. You ever hear of a corn burning heater? I've been riding to VA with another guy in my unit. He burns corn for heat. Says it's really efficient and the price of corn seems really cheap. Corn seems to be a relatively easy crop to grow. Would be kind of awesome being able to grow your own heating fuel.

It was cool enough for a fire! hahahaha!

Corn fired works, just the price is too volatile unless you are already a big corn farmer. Better to shoot your extra corn to your beefers! Besides, cutting wood is too much fun...

You can get crops of wood fast enough to grow your own firewood, maybe like the hybrid poplars or easier and better, mulberry. Mulberry you get a three-fer, great firewood, great berries, plus it will regrow from the stump.

 

[MechanicMatt]

Sorry to hear Uncle Mike, one of my buddies coming to my birthday rides mountain bikes competitvely, you should get along well, he shot a monster of a deer this year too. Officer Mike, there will be 4 mikes there, hahaha

 

[stihly dan]

4 cords of aspen CSS today. Chucker is a man of steel. The 550 did all of the bucking duties.

C'mon split and stacked? 4 cord? Sounds a bit like a fish story. Or that the stacks will fall. Or that I am so slow I can't/wont believe it because I can't stack 4 cords in a day.

 

[svk]

C'mon split and stacked? 4 cord? Sounds a bit like a fish story. Or that the stacks will fall. Or that I am so slow I can't/wont believe it because I can't stack 4 cords in a day.

Cut split and stacked 1/2 hour away from cutting area.

 

[stihly dan]

Cut split and stacked 1/2 hour away from cutting area.

Ohhh I get it, this is the old face cord is a cord thing. Crazy northern Minnasotaiens.

 

[MountainHigh]

Can't be that cold can it? It's been a beautiful day here. I'm going camping this weekend with the family and dog right after a full day of scrounging tomorrow.

Oh yeah almost forgot. You ever hear of a corn burning heater? I've been riding to VA with another guy in my unit. He burns corn for heat. Says it's really efficient and the price of corn seems really cheap. Corn seems to be a relatively easy crop to grow. Would be kind of awesome being able to grow your own heating fuel.

Burning corn sounds good at first glance, but growing it sure sucks back the soil nutrients. You have to pour on the nitrogen. It's one of the most demanding crops on soil. Guessing just burning the left over husks might be an option for those with a farm already, if the husks normally just get composted.

"Corn responds best to highly fertile soils with supplemental fertilizer applied in most years. Fertilizer may be inorganic chemical fertilizer or manure. Major nutrients required by corn are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Inorganic nitrogen fertilizer production is very energy intensive and as a result nitrogen fertilizer represents nearly 30% of the energy inputs in corn production (BESS 2009). Other major inputs include diesel fuel for tractors, transportation and irrigation and electricity for irrigation and grain storage."

http://cropwatch.unl.edu/bioenergy/corn

 

[svk]

Ohhh I get it, this is the old face cord is a cord thing. Crazy northern Minnasotaiens.

Not! A cord is a cord or a fraction thereof.

 

[svk]

Got out to my yellow birch first thing this morning. It started to get punky into the main trunk (which was fine with me because I didn't have a saw big enough to cut it). Split out the punky part on those last few rounds and ended up with a nice stack of boiler splits for me.


Between the big birch and the road an aspen had knocked over this black ash:


And this yellow birch.

I'll haul all of these out this fall when I have access to a wheeler.

Finally I made a load of maple and white birch to bring to a friend. I had bartered wood for a pair of high end winter boots.

 

[MountainHigh]

nice noodles - I'm guessing this must be on private property. Around here if you leave anything cut in wild, it's pretty well picked up in a day or two

 

[svk]

nice noodles - I'm guessing this must be on private property. Around here if you leave anything cut in wild, it's pretty well picked up in a day or two

Public land but 150 yards off a very lightly traveled logging road. I'd be floored anyone even walks through that 40 between now and hunting season.

 

[svk]

That yellow birch is dense stuff. Looking forward to burning it.

 

[svk]

Forgot to post this one earlier. Here's the view from across the lake from my hunting cabin this morning.

 

[USMC615]

Forgot to post this one earlier. Here's the view from across the lake from my hunting cabin this morning.

View attachment 419694

Sweet...puts the meaning into 'a pic worth a thousand words.' Nice...worth blowing up and framing.

 

[Oldman47]

Burning corn sounds good at first glance, but growing it sure sucks back the soil nutrients. You have to pour on the nitrogen. It's one of the most demanding crops on soil. Guessing just burning the left over husks might be an option for those with a farm already, if the husks normally just get composted.

"Corn responds best to highly fertile soils with supplemental fertilizer applied in most years. Fertilizer may be inorganic chemical fertilizer or manure. Major nutrients required by corn are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Inorganic nitrogen fertilizer production is very energy intensive and as a result nitrogen fertilizer represents nearly 30% of the energy inputs in corn production (BESS 2009). Other major inputs include diesel fuel for tractors, transportation and irrigation and electricity for irrigation and grain storage."

http://cropwatch.unl.edu/bioenergy/corn

If you start burning the cobs you are removing nutrients from a crop field that already needs to be heavily supplemented. It sounds like a losing proposition to me unless your focus is a pretty short time.

 

[MountainHigh]

If you start burning the cobs you are removing nutrients from a crop field that already needs to be heavily supplemented. It sounds like a losing proposition to me unless your focus is a pretty short time.

I agree. Soil needs the compost - adding NPK alone won't suffice.

Price of food is going up since we started adding corn/ethanol to gas. Tell someone in 3rd world that we grow corn to add to gas, and they'll look at you like a truck just hit them.

 

[dancan]

Was at the pile of logs that Pioneerguy600 and I had scrounged up , still had to beat the logs out of the ice , sucks because of the rocks in the ice stuck to the bottom ones , it meant for a bit of extra filing

I ended up dragging 3 van loads and 2 truck loads home today

I guess it was a little heavy LOL
Even found these in Mother Nature's fridge

It was a great day , scrounge on gentleman

 

[svk]

Bumper dragging...win!

 

[mainewoods]

Geez Dan, you guy's got hammered with snow. If any one of those storms had tracked 75 miles to the west, we would have been buried worse than we were, instead of you. Bought time we caught a break! Parts of my garden are still covered with snow and ice. Just finished chiseling ice off my garlic bed. I'm sick of it, and I bet you are too!

 

[mainewoods]

On a positive note, I dropped 8 beech, 7 sugar maple and 4 red oak yesterday. Time to drag 'em down the "hill" to the wood yard.