Billy North here. Wanted to make an update. Naomi, our daughter made it home early this morning. We took her in for appendicitis Sunday. It was quite bad. They had her on the table for almost 5 hours. But she’s home and ok. In a lot of pain. But wanting her school books. 
Makes me wonder if I failed somewhere in the past. Lol.
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We are praying for a quick recovery Billy, glad she is home safe
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We have an invasive here called Hardy Orange or citrus trifoliata. It’s super acidic and good for tenderizing meat. The only citrus that survives the cold here. Very waxy lemon-like species
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Hello Billy, I hope for a good recovery for your lovely daughter Naomi, illness always brings us new trials and questions, so we have to put our life and work on the scale and find out where it leaned, which side we put too much on and which side we put too little on. … but no one is perfect and no one does everything perfectly, we are all just sinful people with mistakes, only God is perfect and almighty.
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Appendicitis is no joke, but at least she won’t have to worry about it ever again. Prayers for y’all.
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I am down to just four overloaded wheelbarrows to being done with taking in wood this year.
I lost count and I “think” 35-40 wheelbarrows brought around to the other open northern side of the old multi-purpose building in the background. PNW wet side the winter rainstorms come from the South 99% of the time. Can blow misty rain inside up to 20 feet, wetting.
The wood on the ground has dried down to under 10%. Been turned once. It will air re-hydrate in the covered wood shed back up to 20-22% by the end of November.
The crib stacked wood up oof the ground on the pallets was all at least 40% to 60% moisture sorted out. I now tarp pull cover nightly to keep night dew off of it. The occasional one-two days of rain a week now upcoming. A good Fall and I can still get it down to ~20% by Octobers ending. The put into the shed.
Wet, wet raining Fall then it will sit out until next July/August.
Conifer woods. When it is all you have; you will learn to make-DO: woodstoving and gasifing.
Here is an intersting video showing the true East-West U.S.of A. divide. Tree species shown at 6:45 The East very diverse. The West very limited diversity.
S.U.
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Quite a pile you have there! A lot of work is done. Maybe some splitting ? By hand?
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It depends JoepK.
My second year having to wood stoves fuel maintain at two 60 miles apart locations.
Only one tow-behind engine powered wood splitter. Maximum 45mph speed to tow.
So away, up there, with a big old cotton wood tree to work up it has been all hand splitting. Two days last weekend with a European (German? Austrian?) splitting maul
And the best in the world (French? Italian) steel twist wedges to block break it down
Down here and up there for daily wood I actually like hand splitting. Good healthy exercising.
Old but still strong I can put in wood much faster as large blocks.
Later split down daily to temperatures needs controlling then the combustion heat releasing rates.
But I force myself to use the engine powered wood spitter too to keep it exercised working. I do a lot of engine oil testing with it. Cold hand cranking efforts. A lot of how long minimum to run to get that oil warmed up to good splash distributing. 3-5 minutes. Get the oil PVC system cooked cleaned from the cold starting and running gasoline washing. 15 minutes. Air cooled everything happens faster. The good. And the bad.
S.U.
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That is a fine looking tool. I’d get the extra handle as well though I don’t see a price for it. I have at least four maul heads laying around here that I have long been going to carve handles for but aways just go get a whole new one. I have never seen that Fireside Friend Splitting tool before. I have always used Estwing hammers. I’m going to order one of those. A while back I was gifted a a Fiskars hatchet with an 18 inch handle. I thought at first it was not going to last because of the carbon fiber wrap around the head but I have used the crap out of it for six years now and it’s still good. Holds an edge real well. When I was splitting by hand I used to take old cheap axe heads and fill the socket with pipe welded in and just split around the perimeter of the round with a four pound sledge. I found it enjoyable to just sit there chunking off slabs.
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Hello all .
My internet connection has been down for about a week but back up now 
May take me a few days to catch up on all the reading .
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Mr. Wayne, no problem, you took a break from the nonsense we publish. 
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This year harvest is over
This year little bit less than last one and inferior quality as well. But it is still only half way down to the bottle. One maight be surprised.
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In preparation for any power outages from the hurricane coming my way, I went ahead and filled up the generator and bought 10 fresh gallons of gas. While I was at the country store I found Non Detergent SAE30 oil! Holy cow. I got 10w30 from Coastal for the Generator. I should probably change the oil today since I’ve done a little bit of breaking in.
The SAE30 will obviously be for my air compressors. I’ve been using 5w30 for the most part. Probably not for the best.
Edit: it’s a good thing I changed the oil. Might be hard to tell, oil is kinda brown, lots of particulate from breaking in the engine. It’s this crud that sends a generator to it’s early grave.
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You better dry some of that corn for seed Al. By next spring one kernel will probably be worth more than that green back.
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Cody
Hope you and everyone in your neck of the woods are safe if the bad weather hits .
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It shouldn’t be too bad, the power just goes out when it gets real windy is all. I might pack the cordless chainsaw in the Sierra just in case.
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For us here now the Fall rains begin finally.
I and other here weary of the last three months of no rain, drying out with everything becoming brown and dusty.
Here: states of Washington, Oregon and even California we locate separate out and settle-in, to our preferences.
I see the low ceiling clouds and gentle drizzling rains as a shrouding protecting blanket. The green brambles constantly re-growing as a resource. Life giving resources.
Ha! Others like snow on the ground months of the years and able to do snow things.
And others like the wide-open spaces, able to see miles and miles and miles of the 250 days sunny dry, dry rain shadow’s east-side.
Don’t mind me. On my third morning now woodstove warming fire. With now enough dry wood to last 250 days.
Life is good again.
Steve Unruh
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Hi Steve, how manys days or hours have you spent to get the 250 days of wood heat for you all, dried and put away under shelter.
Bob
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This year for the combined 5-6 cords (18-22 cubic meters) of wood here at the Yacolt place it would be ~60 hours BobMac.
As a young man we figured an honest 1 and 1/4 cord (4.5 cubic meters) a day per man for tree to the property from way up in the National Forest. The max-out on the H.D. pickups. How many hours in that day was depending on how far up we had to go. Lots of those with rough road travel times were 12-14 hour days.
Our own property trees a bit better. Back then we did medium split on the spot. So more piece’s handling. Fine split down you have to handle as many as 500-800 pieces 2,3,4 times overall tree to drying to in-shed.
I got old and cannot quicky handle fine split time-effectively anymore.
So my own property trees I, just 40-50 blocks cord the big trunk wood. Unsplit round lengths the smaller stuff. But I do gleam, bring-in right down to 1" thumb sticks too.
Old now; the trick is to do 3-4 hours in any given day.
This year so maybe 20 part-days for me working up this heating seasons woods.
Hey. No gyms fees and traveling to and froe times.
I’ll add pictures later today once we are back up to the north house of a wet, wet rick of blocks row. Handling and stacking was easy. The steel wedging slamming breaking it down was not.
But hardest on that old cottonwood was the 1000+ pieces of tree branches for at best 1/2 cord (~2 cubic meters). Headaches from all of the bending over.
Wood-for-energy and it is all very unequal. Why I say the real factor making it worth it is that it is in my opinion the only true Freedom fuel.
And true Freedom costs in real blood, sweat and tears.
S.U.
Edit adds: North house firewoods from cleaning up a previously cut down 2-3 years ago big old hazard cotton wood tree
All too wood-eating bugs infested to put in, or near, any of the wooden buildings.
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