Well, I was able to get up to camp to buck those two trees. Used a new/used timber jack I bought from a flea market. Worked great, and made bucking much easier. I'm figuring I've got perhaps a face cord of wood to split and stack in the wood shed. My camp just endured blizzard conditions with 6" snow. Glad I was home. Working on getting a new RV trailer to haul to camp. That will be my next visit to do some splitting.

Splitting a face cord of black ash will be satisfying work.

I dented my wood pile this week. Maybe 38 cords left!

38 cords left!! Wowzers, I'd be long gone before I'd burn all of that. I think I've got about a cord and a third in the wood shed. How much do you go through in a typical winter? And what species of wood do you burn? Looks like my camp is under another winter storm warning, with 6"s expected. Might not get into camp till summer!!?

I bought a van of wood - because it was a good deal. It is all maple. I did have one black ash. You can see the load on Musher's Tails. The past few years We have been burning yellow birch.

We burn a ten cords or so.

We're not supposed to have hurricanes in Ohio, but Hurricane Helene knocked down a pile of trees in my old pasture. I've cut about six cords, mostly beech. There will be a lot go to waste.

They're calling for a chance of snow in the higher mountains tonight, otherwise looks like above freezing temps till April 7th.

I've watched the video on Musher's tails, that is a nice load of wood. I think Brian said it was $1,600. Here local, a "tri-axel" load of mostly oak, is going for $700. So, about the same price.

I agree, that's a fair price. A pickup load of seasoned, cut and split firewood is going from $75 to $100 per load. Coal is going for $130/ton, but that's an hour drive from here.

Here at work people ask me about every day, who or where they can buy this and that or who I'd recommend to do their project. So I try to keep up on things. I know people that have dump trucks and dump wagons and all of that stuff. These people are my friends and I try to do the best I can for them.

I skimmed down through the thread, Frank has a wood splitter, I've used a couple different ones. My brother has one, I've played with it a couple times. A few years ago, we topped a silver maple in my back yard. I cut those blocks of wood down to 12 or 14 inches, and that was still a load for 1 man to pick up. It was green and heavy. It would have been a real chore to split with a maul and wedges.

There were 2 of us there, fired up the splitter, just slide them off the truck and plop them on the splitter and then you could handle them. My brother has and outdoor furnace, hot water, it does a good job for him. It's plumbed up to his hot water heater and all. So, that would save on his electric bill, I guess most days the heater doesn't even come on?

Timber is big business in this area. I see log trucks on the road every day, headed in all directions. I know the local timber guys, talk to them now and then, once a week or so? But a couple of them have a new, new to me type of contraption.

It's an articulating machine on tracks, that uses a circular saw on a boom. I saw one go past today. That is a big and heavy machine. I was talking to one of the local guys, he said he could take down a 30 inch tree in a second. And lay it down where he wanted it.

I know where he's timbering, as soon as I get a chance I'd like to see that thing in action.

I've been seeing some pretty logs on the road. One load that stands out, was a load of white pine. Our white pines mostly grow straight as an arrow. Brent went past the other day with his boom truck, not sure?, the logs were 24 feet long or so? Deed honest all of those logs were 15 or 16 inches at the small end. Beautiful load of timber!

Here is a link to a big timber machine, similar to the ones that are being used in this area.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/vi...mp;action=click

The machine that Junior and Randy have is bigger than the machine in the video. Junior said the saw's teeth are 2 inches wide.

I'll admit my aged frailty. I would not have cut that beech if I didn't have a log splitter. At one time I could bust it with a maul -- not no more. Tim talked about lifting those heavy rounds of wood. I don't. I turn the splitter up vertical and just slide the round on the foot of the splitter. The wedge doesn't have to be very far into the round to split it in two.

I know what you mean about using the splitter vertical, biggest problem was loading the blocks on the truck, and the splitter was 3 miles away. No need to run out to get the splitter for a few blocks of wood. On an S-10, they were a pretty good load.

Tell you what the deal was, I'd topped that maple, 10 or 15 years before, and you can imagine how they sprouted out. I did give the rest of the firewood away, nobody would take those chunks, all twisted up, knotty and all. And too much to handle. If my brother didn't have a hydraulic splitter, I'd have taken them on up and dumped them in the woods to rot.

The tree is still alive and needs topped again, it is a good shade tree. I just looked at it, (squirrel sitting my porch rail, it's running short on time) the tree was cut down to about 20 feet at the last topping. I didn't count, but there about 50 branches/limbs on it now.

Looking at the biggest branch of the tree, I'd say a man with a maul, 2 or 3 splitting wedges, you'd be doing good to bust it into firewood sized pieces in an hour. More trouble than it's worth, and not going to burn out a tank of saw gas, on just a little stack of wood. Blocks of wood like that are best left in the woods.

I'm sure Musher will find a few such blocks in his stack of logs.

I use a Fiskers X-27 to split. There isn't much it won't do.

There is a method to splitting wood. On the big pieces, you cut the edges off. You circle around until just the center is left. I can get 7-10 pieces of fire wood off of one big block. I also split when it is cold; The colder, the better.

If the wood is too dry or it is hot out, splitting becomes work!

The blocks that are curly are the toughest. So far, this load is going quite well. I must have a dozen cords split and it is much easier going than when I bought "butts" of yellow birch.