Starting Fires

[clawmute]

As the weather here approaches spring theres no need to keep a roaring fire in our stove all night. I keep a supply of Ash split into kindling size for getting it going in the mornings. I place a chunk or two of fat pine on the coals, add a bunch of Ash kindling and in just minutes it's off.

I look through the woods for pine stumps that are usually just a small piece sticking above ground level . I pull away the bark and loose dirt, wrap a small chain around them and lift them out with the tractor bucket. Some of them are pretty good size and will start a lot of fires once they are split up on the hydr splitter.

With LP gas prices through the roof I bought this used stove before Christmas for $175, a real bargain. It is multi-walled with variable speed blower, brass fittings and weighs 400lbs or so. I wrestled it in by myself but don't want to do that again - not at 64! I love wood heat and as long as I can crawl out to the woods for fuel I will. We have already saved at least $350 in LP gas. I was a little behind the 8 ball this year having to cut/burn unseasoned wood and cut next years too.

I've burned a whole lot of Ash since it's best if you have to use unseasoned wood, but also cut up a huge Hickory that's been dead over a year. I dug it up last summer and it had two or three cords in it. I'd like to spend more time cutting/hauling/splitting but I have to put a new roof on the house due to recent storms here in Arkansas.

 

[Zodiac45]

Righto Clawmute,

If you've got to burn green wood, ash is the only candidate. Nice score on the stove by the way!

My primary stove is a big old Glenwood C cookstove that requires lighting every morning. I have a Jotul down the other end of the house, but the Glenwood is the big heater. Each year when my firewood is done, I get a last load of cedar. After it's bucked, I split it into slabs and pile these in the barn for storage. I have a kindling area with a block and small axe where I go on a rainy day and knock these slabs into sticks. You can't beat dry cedar for kindling. It hardly requires any paper. Each morn, I grab 4 pieces from the bucket in back of the stove, roll up 2-3 newpaper pages and these 4 and I'm off too the races.:greenchainsaw:

 

[curdy]

Just curious and don't mean to get too off topic, but could you fill me in on the choice of ash for burning unseasoned? I haven't heard this before. The only one I had heard of was osage orange.

This is great news, because I'm picking through my unsplit piles now trying to find the most seasoned stuff to finish up the season. I do have some ash that's probably good to go if its a better wood to burn when a little less seasoned.

I should only need a couple more weeks of burning so picking out the ash (rather than tossing around each piece of maple or oak to rough check the seasoning by weight) would make the scrounging process a whole lot faster!

Thanks!

 

[curdy]

Righto Clawmute,
My primary stove is a big old Glenwood C cookstove that requires lighting every morning.

Cool stove BTW!

 

[clawmute]

Just curious and don't mean to get too off topic, but could you fill me in on the choice of ash for burning unseasoned? I haven't heard this before. The only one I had heard of was osage orange.

This is great news, because I'm picking through my unsplit piles now trying to find the most seasoned stuff to finish up the season. I do have some ash that's probably good to go if its a better wood to burn when a little less seasoned.

I should only need a couple more weeks of burning so picking out the ash (rather than tossing around each piece of maple or oak to rough check the seasoning by weight) would make the scrounging process a whole lot faster!

Thanks!

Ash I have here is Green Ash and White Ash. These are the most abundant Ashes throughout the range of the Ash tree. They are similar, White Ash is a better quality of wood but they both share a lower initial mositure content than other woods. Something the Lord did to help us out. Ash woods are very light in color - amost white in some trees. They are one of the few opposite limbed/opposite leaved trees in the forest and are relatively easy to identify.

This old rhyme tells it all.

the memory aid firewood rhyme
Two versions - Take your pick...

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year
Chestnut only good they say
If for long it's laid away
Make a fire of elder tree
Death within your house will be
But ash new or ash old
Is fit for a Queen with a crown of gold
Birch and Fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last
It is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
Elmwood burns like churchyard mould
Even the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a Queen with a golden crown
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke
Apple wood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume
Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winters cold
But ash wet or ash dry
A king shall warm his slippers by.



2nd version

Beech wood fires burn bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year
Store your beech for Christmastide
With new holly laid beside
Chestnuts only good they say
If for years tis stayed away
Birch and fir wood burn too fast
Blaze too bright and do not last
Flames from larch will shoot up high
Dangerously the sparks will fly
But Ash wood green and Ash wood brown
Are fit for a Queen with a golden crownOaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winters cold
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke
Elmwood burns like churchyard mould
Even the very flames burn cold
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
So it is in Ireland said
Apple wood will scent the room
Pears wood smells like a flower in bloom
But Ash wood wet and Ash wood dry
A King may warm his slippers by.

 

[clawmute]

Righto Clawmute,

If you've got to burn green wood, ash is the only candidate. Nice score on the stove by the way!

My primary stove is a big old Glenwood C cookstove that requires lighting every morning. I have a Jotul down the other end of the house, but the Glenwood is the big heater. Each year when my firewood is done, I get a last load of cedar. After it's bucked, I split it into slabs and pile these in the barn for storage. I have a kindling area with a block and small axe where I go on a rainy day and knock these slabs into sticks. You can't beat dry cedar for kindling. It hardly requires any paper. Each morn, I grab 4 pieces from the bucket in back of the stove, roll up 2-3 newpaper pages and these 4 and I'm off too the races.:greenchainsaw:

I really like that stove! Reminds me of one my granny Jennings used to bake biscuits in back in the Texas hills when I was a boy!

 

[clawmute]

A load of Green Ash - Fraxinus Pennsylvanica

I cut this 20 incher below our house in the river bottom. A load of Hickory is on the tractor in the background.

 

[Zodiac45]

Thanks Guy's for the compliments on my old Glenwood C cooker. She really is a beaut and being a huge hunk of cast, really throws some heat. One of these days I'll take those chrome parts off and redue them.

It's a 1909 C model, Treeco and yep sure would go good in any old home. My house here is an old Sea Captain's house on the Downeat coast of Maine. This house is just over 200 years old and up until the 60s, also had a small island out in the bay attached too the deed. Two owners ago previous to me, gave it too the state. I think back in the day the Captain off loaded onto Round Island and used smaller craft to bring in the cargo.

When I bought this place about 20 years ago, I was scrounging round out in the attached barn and found the oven/firebox part of the stove slid under some steps. I pulled it out and started hunting round and eventually came up with all the rest of the parts scattered around in the barn and garage. It's great too cook on and bake with too.

 

[clawmute]

Thanks Guy's for the compliments on my old Glenwood C cooker. She really is a beaut and being a huge hunk of cast, really throws some heat. One of these days I'll take those chrome parts off and redue them.

It's a 1909 C model, Treeco and yep sure would go good in any old home. My house here is an old Sea Captain's house on the Downeat coast of Maine. This house is just over 200 years old and up until the 60s, also had a small island out in the bay attached too the deed. Two owners ago previous to me, gave it too the state. I think back in the day the Captain off loaded onto Round Island and used smaller craft to bring in the cargo.

When I bought this place about 20 years ago, I was scrounging round out in the attached barn and found the oven/firebox part of the stove slid under some steps. I pulled it out and started hunting round and eventually came up with all the rest of the parts scattered around in the barn and garage. It's great too cook on and bake with too.

Sounds like a really neat/historical place to live! A lot of good stuff to sniff out. Great area to investigate historically and with a metal detector! We live 100 feet above the Middle Fork of the Saline (Sah - leen) on a ridge where the Indians used to camp. Found several arrowheads here at our home site.

 

[Zodiac45]

Nice stuff Claw,

We've got some old Passamaquaddy shell mounds and even older glyphs carved into some of the shoreline rocks here too. Here's whats left of an old fishing weir and a shot from off the top of the hill Frenchman's bay.

 

[lawnmowertech37]

the thing about forums is you get to see how lovely a place looks like by seeing pictures nice pictures there you all when i get around to it i may be posting some photos myself maybe even one of me that way you can put a face to the name


thanks
calvin

 

[clawmute]

the thing about forums is you get to see how lovely a place looks like by seeing pictures nice pictures there you all when i get around to it i may be posting some photos myself maybe even one of me that way you can put a face to the name


thanks
calvin

A good thing about the net is all of the nice and interesting people you get to correspond with! You get to see photos of places you may never get to visit. I work in forest products engineering and design and spent some time in Franklin North Carolina (K'lina as natives say) on a drum debarker installation. Really pretty there. Came in through the Nantahala Natl forest. Jim Dandy mountains in there! I had a great great great grandfather that lived there and was married there in the late 1700's and was in the revolutionary army.

This is a picture of me and my son Nathan taken a few years ago. Little more grey in the hair now!

 

[lawnmowertech37]

is that a 8 pointer or 6 pointer buck deer ?


looks like to be dressed out about 150 lbs


actually i would probily be bankrupt by now if it was not for the net with us competing with other online stores there are just a few we compete with and i am trying my hardest to get known all over of our shipping and excellence in customer service


when someone fills out the contact form on our site instead of hearing from us in few days its almost instant and alot of folks are astonished of how fast they get a reply back

i not trying to push sales on here but i am trying to let folks get to know me a little better i cannot accomplish anything if i remain quiet even though in real life i am kind of a quiet person


but at least on the net i can talk talk talk talk talk talk talk and more talk

so sometimes that just is easy to do except for the fingers it kind of makes them feel bad all that movement on the keyboard

etc.


well back to my store i had to take a break from adding oregon products just got done with Air filters for Briggs and kabota and lawn boy


calvin

 

[clawmute]

is that a 8 pointer or 6 pointer buck deer ?


looks like to be dressed out about 150 lbs


actually i would probily be bankrupt by now if it was not for the net with us competing with other online stores there are just a few we compete with and i am trying my hardest to get known all over of our shipping and excellence in customer service


when someone fills out the contact form on our site instead of hearing from us in few days its almost instant and alot of folks are astonished of how fast they get a reply back

i not trying to push sales on here but i am trying to let folks get to know me a little better i cannot accomplish anything if i remain quiet even though in real life i am kind of a quiet person


but at least on the net i can talk talk talk talk talk talk talk and more talk

so sometimes that just is easy to do except for the fingers it kind of makes them feel bad all that movement on the keyboard

etc.


well back to my store i had to take a break from adding oregon products just got done with Air filters for Briggs and kabota and lawn boy


calvin

That un' was a six pointer. Hunt mostly on my own place now on several little green fields I made. Got 3 this fall - two does and a 7 pointer. Need to thin out some more, we're gettin' over run and they come right up to the house to eat my garden.

I had my own business for about 20 years - plenty of genuine headaches! Went back to work for a company I used to work for - great job - no overhead - no IRS - no payroll!

I have a Kubota L4200 and love it. Only have about 800 hrs on it.


Got this 7 point right below my house in the blind shown below. This is the exit wound side.

My favorite stand is this elevated one I built that is 20 ft. to the floor. River comes up on it 6-8ft. so I have it tied off to a big sweet gum.

This field was all woods until I cleared it a few years ago.

 

[Brushwacker]

Righto Clawmute,

If you've got to burn green wood, ash is the only candidate.

Sassafras seems to do well green in my experiance, but it throws lots of sparks,especially the bark.

 

[clawmute]

Sassafras seems to do well green in my experiance, but it throws lots of sparks,especially the bark.

Sassafras is not that common here - only small stuff. I guess the larger trees were cut some time ago.