Getting ready for winter!

Got my wood delivered this past week. 5 loads of logs plus about 5 pickup loads of butt pieces from cleaning up the logging loading area. The small light colored pieces are ash slab wood from the Amish sawmill. I don't want a repeat of last winter where everybody ran out and we had to fight the snow and ice to get more. The honey is for ambition when we get to cutting and splitting......

That should last you awhile.

It is a good and fuzzy feeling to have yourself ready for whatever is ahead. It's similar down here when the barn is full of cow feed and the cupboards in the house are as well as other things necessary for the soul. The honey is a "soothing" enticement to press on. I am trying to be ready for what the future holds in all aspects and have to kick myself every couple of days. collie

That's a really nice size pile of wood. I'm up to about 14 cord, cut/split/stacked but would like to get at least 6 more in.

Do you sell your honey? I'm buying raw, pure honey here for $16/quart.

Good job Rule number 1 is you can never have to much wood.
Im still collecting and will collect till the snow flys.
I have a good jump on next season already.

What the heck are you heating?!?!

I am ready.

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2400 sq foot home.Our winters up here can be long and cold.Plus with my MS i get it when i can as i never know when ill go down with an attack.
Plus new heating system so i have no clue on how much wood i will use so i dont wqnt to run out.Im sitting roughly 12 log cords so far.close to 10 of it is drying for next season.I have 10 acres so i have all kinds of room for wood so if i can get it free i get it.
They are predicting a colder winter than last year and there were way to many days that didnt break zero.

For me, a cord is 4'X4'X8'........Right now, here in N.W. Georgia I am ahead of where we were last year with both wood and the weather.............Last year by now, and yes last year was the coldest in a very long time; but by now we had a fire going every night and had 8 cords put up. This year, at least we havent started any fires and have 10 put away.

Wish some of you guys were down here actually. I can't even give the stuff away, unless perhaps I split it and stack it for them.......Right now I have at least 10 18" to 24" diameter oak and or hickory trees that are standing and dead this year. Whatever is killing my oaks and hickory trees is worse this year....................

Anyway, the weather has finally started to cool off, so like the rest of you, am ready to get out there and rock and roll with the saw and the splitter..............God bless...........Dennis

I wish i did live close to you Id take a lot of it off of you.Wood is getting harder to come by up here.We lost all the ash trees up here to the emerald ash borer so thats 1 tree you wont find up here right now.I heard there is a disease going through the red maple and sugar maples up here but havnt heard about anything else.

I have almost 4 years worth, cut/split/stacked. I'm going to try and get another year or 2 worth before the leaves fall. For these, I just want to get the wood down the hill and out of the woods and will split it over the winter. My hill is seriously steep so once it's covered with leaves, I can't bring wood out anymore since I'll just slide down the hill.

Mark.Sibole said:

Plus new heating system so i have no clue on how much wood i will use so i dont wqnt to run out.

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Mark - is that a new wood burning system? I replaced my wood stove a couple years back and found the new ones burn a lot less wood for the same amount of heat. I was burning close to 5 full cord a winter with the old one and with the new one, I only burn about 3 cord. That's running the stove 24/7 for the entire winter.

I wish i could get a head 3 or 4 years here.Wood is getting hard to come by for free.
I went from a fire place insert to a central boiler 4030 classic.
It was this to keep the wife and kids warm or a tractor with a front bucker.
They got their boiler.
Eventually i have to get a small tractor with a front bucket to help me with wood.MS is kicking my ass and i cant go like i used to.
I wish they would have made a front bucket attachment for the RTV.

BZ, I know you keep your winter supply of wood under roof. How do the rest of you "wood burners" store your wood? I know some folks just neatly stack it out in the open. I have seen where some Amish stack their split wood in a circular fashion. Just curious.

PS i looked at the E classic which is more efficent but 2 major draw backs on it.It was 4 grand more and because of the after burner your wood had to be seasoned at least 2 years.That is a must.This one can burn wetter wood with no problems.Right now im burning all the junk wood in the warmer temps.Pine and Polular works well for this time of the year.When it gets real cold ill switch to the oak maple birch and beech.
I bought 6 log cords to start with as i didnt know how well i would feel or if i could fall into some free wood.I got lucky Picked up 1 White pine at 150 feet tall and 48 inches diameter for free all i had to do was unload it he cut and spit and loaded it for me and then the next township is building a new pavillian and needed a lot of mic polular and maple removed so i did it for them and charged them just the wood.So i got close to 6 log cord there.
Everyone measures different in michigan they use terms like face cord and log cord.Face ford is 8x4x18 inches and a log cord or pulp cord is 8x4x4 so 1 log cord is 3 gace cord.
So to really figure out how many log cords you have its generally length x width x height divided by 128 so in my wood house it would be 20x20x5/128=15.625 log or pulp cord.
Damn i got long winded thisa morning lol

Keifer said:

BZ, I know you keep your winter supply of wood under roof. How do the rest of you "wood burners" store your wood? I know some folks just neatly stack it out in the open. I have seen where some Amish stack their split wood in a circular fashion. Just curious.

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For me i have a 20x20 steel car port i stack mine in.No sides so the wind can pass through for drying.The new wood just gets dropped off in the field to bake in the sun to dry out before I cut to length and split and stack in the wood house.Some people put it on pallets and stack criss cross i just stack it in rows of 20 feet long 4 to 7 feet high and let natire do the rest.
Ill take a few pics later of what I have so far to show you the mess lol.
Every one has a different method of stacking.Every application needs to be different.inside wood stove wood needs to be cutt shorter and completly dry and snow free so the cover the hell out of it.On the outside boilers you dont need to worry about a little bit of moisture so i just keep a roof over it and will knock off any snor or ice build up on it.Plus the mess is always outside.The firebox on the bouler is approx 30 deep 40 wide and 30 tall so it can hold some wood.

Have tried stacking wood both ways. The circular way ends up looking like a tee pee or an old time haystack. You put the bark side of the split wood to the outside to shed rain. Worked ok but I went back to stacking in rows between trees and put a piece of tin across the top and weight it down. The outside boilers are great. Went to Elizabeth town N.C. to get two of the outside units. Burn a lot less wood than before. If you can chunk the wood into the woodbox split or not wet or dry they will burn.

I have had a 6048 Central boiler for 7 years now and love it. If I was not heating 2 greenhouses it would not burn near as much wood. We finally got a few hours of cutting and splitting done yesterday. The youngest Amish boy was out hunting and did not help. His brother and another boy went bow hunting in the morning and worked a few hours for me. The young one got a nice doe since it was our 3 day junior rifle season for young hunters. They want to go to the new Field and Stream store that just opened this week so I promised them I would take them when it rained this week. The young one showed me the shells i bought him for his birthday were what he got the doe with. They are learning to conserve ammo with the crazy prices and the shortages.

Boy muleman that is some pretty honey!

thunderdome said:

Boy muleman that is some pretty honey!

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We will see what the other beekeepers think of it tomorrow. It is our taste test meeting for the beekeepers association. Everybody brings 2 sample bears of their honey and we vote for it. There are always prizes and a good time. Then November we have our supper where everybody brings a dish and the group buys a ham and turkey and the gals cook it. Dang good eats but I have to watch my diet a little since the old saying "if it tastes good spit it out" does apply to a lot of the goodies.

muleman said:

I have had a 6048 Central boiler for 7 years now and love it. If I was not heating 2 greenhouses it would not burn near as much wood. We finally got a few hours of cutting and splitting done yesterday. The youngest Amish boy was out hunting and did not help. His brother and another boy went bow hunting in the morning and worked a few hours for me. The young one got a nice doe since it was our 3 day junior rifle season for young hunters. They want to go to the new Field and Stream store that just opened this week so I promised them I would take them when it rained this week. The young one showed me the shells i bought him for his birthday were what he got the doe with. They are learning to conserve ammo with the crazy prices and the shortages.

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Congrats on the Kill. That time of the year where everyone is getting ready for winter.Right now with the milder temps im burning up all the pine as it goes fast in the real cold temps.