What Johan said. March or April are wood splitting months. Air humidity is usually the lowest from January to June, but the snow cover decides when to start. From Midsummer onwards, morning dew make wood start pick up moisture again. I was surpriced the firts time I learned the PNW didn’t have similar conditions. Since the North Atlantic wind is blowing from the south-west across the Scandinavian peninsula 90% of the time, it would be about the same I thought - but no.
I try not to burn more than 50% conifer woods. Char quality and bridging are the main reasons. Johan and I both use downdraft boilers, but mine seems a bit more picky. When bridging, the pile sometimes get top lit and risk puffing. With solid birchwood there’s a perfect flame for hours, and when the last logs hit the char they still show mostly untoasted white shiny flesh on top.
In Sweden 20% of forested land is public, 30% private corporations and 50% is owned by individuals like Johan and me. I think if someone wants to gather firewood themselves, they probably have best luck ask individual owners to help do some thinning or similar.
Most people that used to heat with firewood and had to buy it, have retreated to heatpumps. Firewood prices nowdays are at least twice as high as prior to the pandemic. Heatpump/simple recreational woodstove is becoming the combination most houseowners choose.
Current rules in all my local area is downed wood only nothing standing, and has to be within 50’ of the road. They gripe if you winch drag things to the road and each load has to be tagged along your firewood cutting permit, can’t take cedar either that’s a highly regulated wood here Pacific Northwest, once the shake and shingle capital of the world there is still a thriving black market for cedar shake bolts. Local mills have certificates of source for any cedars that is bought to help prevent wood poachers
I’m realizing the US is managed VERY different from the rest of the world, and each state is hyper specific to its own laws and being the size of most states foreigners are saying each state is really its own country just under a bigger banner of completely uncohesive government that doesn’t represents is people whatsoever
But I supposed that’s most governments
Anyway ya strict rules for firewood harvesting. Wore out a few trucks doing it as a business when I was a teenager. I frequent the hills so often every rig I own gets mercilessly beaten on our mountain roads. 30 minutes ago I was replacing ball joints and wheel bearings in the daily driver geo from said roads. Dodge and Toyota both never needed any grate shaking in them thar hills. Few potholes need careful navigation to avoid pissing blood, older I get slower I drive up there. Already blown 3 tires this year, one this Monday out deer hunting
It is about the same as we have here except I think we can go further the 50ft, and you guys have actual mountains and it is rockier. I haven’t gotten firewood with a permit in like 30 years.
I can’t imagine driving on a rough road in a geo, those things have like 12" tires. You feel -every- bump in those, and they are way too low to the ground. The only bright side about them is if you do get stuck, you can pick them up and move them. We used to pick up small cars in the HS parking lot and turn them 90 degrees as a prank, or pick up cars and move them out of the ditch in the winter.
Our country is larger and more diverse then most countries by a significant margin both geographically and population/ethnicity wise. Our system of government is different as well. I don’t think our government is nearly as hot of a mess as what the propaganda machines are saying. There are a lot of people attacking the US for various reasons, almost all of it has to do with money. The whole Global warming stuff, is about money and resource control (The US literally brought it up to reduce oil imports, not socialism/communism which is what the left is pushing for.), “globalization” is about the US deficit spending to prop up the world economy which if was balance the trade deficit, we don’t have to do. Tariffs mean the US has a better chance of recovering and creating jobs without deficit spending. The Europeans were expecting the US to jump into Ukraine which means we would have had to spend trillions of dollars to boost their economy, and they wouldn’t have to pay anything.
Build back better was the same general direction.
It isn’t nearly as bad as what the propaganda is saying. Our government is intentionally designed to move slowly.
Yeah Marcus.
Forest harvesting firewood up in the mountains on slopes demands it’s own set of hard learned rules, alright. #1 being, “N-e-v-e-r chase after downhill wood!” The efforts and sweats to work up a single load of downhill wood could have made up at least FIVE to TEN loads of uphill wood. We learned we could cruise hundreds of feet uphill; then cut ,and roll the rounds down to a road just so much easier. Even if you had to work downwards, kicking back into a roll, rounds hung up 2-3 times. Actually a full speed single roll was b-a-d. Having the rounds picking up too much speed and jumping the road turning themselves into downhill wood!
End flip the rounds gotten down onto the road, and rowed them up as catch barriers. Or really, really steep and high-up in; half split them as cut, uphill, to take their roundness away. More kicking steps to get them down then. But at least all could be saved.
Make gravity your friend-helper. Not fighting it as your enemy.
Power winch woods up to a road? That causes slope disturbances and will get you fined. Plus the equipment wear costs will eat you up alive.
Only worth winching up for an Elk or a big buck deer.
I agree totally Steve about uphill wood. My problem is that rolling the rounds downhill bangs up other trees on the way down. I suppose I could get some sort of easy to install shields for the trees…
These are the willows we planted in May. They started as 12-inch/30-cm cuttings, with about 2 inches/5 cm above soil level. The one next to Tim is just over 11 feet/3.4 m after 6 months.
Saw logs they’re not, but we’re pleased with the half-inch/12 cm diameter growth in half a year. Of the 5 varieties we planted, 4 survived. These are the tallest and thickest. Some are bushier, partly because I let the deer fence sag a little too much. The thinnest cuttings basically all died. They had started to sprout before I planted them, which was not a good thing to do.
We have native willows growing along the trail just north of us, from which we plan to take cuttings when they’re dormant. The deer don’t seem to bother them, they like the climate, and the price is right. On the far side of our place, there are Cottonwoods we hope to prune and plant this fall also. Little steps, but at least in the right direction, we hope.
Nice! Those got huge! What is your purpose in planting them?
Willows are usually the understory tree of the Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), which is a soft maple. You are west of the native range, but manitoba and northeast washington have them as well as mid-montana. I am not really sure what map is correct. It is a soft maple but harder then willow or cottonwood, and I think the big leaf maple. It is a straight grained wood. They will branch out in clumps if coppiced or grow straight up. They have brittle branches that will break.
They can be grown from cuttings as well.
I thought I would mention it since you mentioned firewood and lumber potential. Even though I am sure you aren’t growing willows for lumber.
The main goal is onsite, continuous firewood supply. Bonus points if we can get by, if necessary, without chain saws and the like. We’re no where near that, but we’ve started. These trees should also work for baskets, trellises, maybe ribs for skin-on-frame boats, things we haven’t yet thought of.
Interesting you mention maples. We have one big maple—I forget the species. It produces a massive number of seeds, so we have lots of little maples
I think I mentioned earlier that we found, accidentally, that they coppice well. They don’t grow as fast as the hybrid willows, but as you say, they are harder. They might work for small tool handles, and should make more durable charcoal. They may work better in the wood stove for overnight use, although the cottontwood produces enough ash to hold fire overnight, but doesn’t produce a lot of heat doing it.
And no, we’re not planning on house building with willow lumber. Still, daub and wattle has a long history, so who knows?
I mentioned maples for lumber for furniture or other uses. It also can be used for sugar for maple syrup. They need to have about a 10" girth before using, and 2 of the species that may grow in the area, their trunks max at 10" and they only get 30ft or so tall.
KentP. a couple of benefits also to willow-types and cottonwoods is they early season draw moisture out of wet boggy lands soils.
And said to have the ability to uptake clean the soils of some contaminates.
And when you find the species that likes you area; climate; and soils, you will be able to get one inch a year in diameter growth rates. 12-18 inches a year in height growth.
Native Douglas Fir off of our property. Only 35-38 years old.
Plus a species liking you area will self propagate prolifically.
The hand raised row of Sequoia Redwoods bordering the neighbors access lane have never, ever, made a single seedling daughter.
The same here with eastern or coastal pines brought in. They grow slowly, poorly. And never self propagate.
Then the folks who insist on planting high altitude loving trees down here at below 1000 feet like Noble Firs, Silver Firs, and others . . . they struggle to survive. And never self propagate. They are native to 3000 feet and higher.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Here’s a dilemma for you. For several reasons but most due to having deer and other looters over run my garden, I’m planning on building a geodesic grow tunnel next spring and doing all my gardening in that. The problem is I need to mill my own lumber and the only available trees I have are Sugar maples. Framing with hardwood is one issue but the other is that dried and surfaced, that wood; a 1X4 for instance, retails for $3.50 a lineal foot. #2 SPF that size is going for 35 cents a lineal foot and much easier to work with, but I’d have to buy that. Selling the hardwood is not an option. Still, kind of seems like a shame.
Did you ever sugar the trees? I had some maples (not sugar maples) on my land back in Massachusetts. I sugared them one year. Got a gallon or so of syrup, but what a chore that was! Easier to buy.
here in western Pennsylvania we have hardwood forests. We have on our homestead enough standing dead trees and down trees that I will never have to leave the property for firewood. This summer I was cutting in grove of maples, they over seed and grow up thicker than they will support themselves and naturally self select. Most of what I cut were the trees that died out or thinned out naturally, about 12" to 16" at the base. I mount a winch in the trailer hitch receiver of my pickup so that I can drive up into the grove and pull the trees to the back of the truck to cut and split. Here is a photo of this years wood pile:
Personally, I would keep the sugar maples and make sugar, you can get a quart or more per tap. Boiling takes a lot time, but you probably need some heat for the greenhouse anyway. You could probably make enough for your whole family.
While harder to work with and more expensive, I would look at the plastic dimensional lumber. It doesn’t rot, and you don’t have to worry about painting it.
IF you really want to, you could make your own from recycled plastic. (They do add a chemical for UV protection) but it is typically #2 plastic. Then you grind, clean, dry, melt, and extrude it. Unless you have a massive scrap pile, or want to say fence your entire property, the equipment is going to cost a lot more, then just buying it.
I’m sure I could mill it and sell it but then I’d have to come into contact with other human beings and I prefer to do that with a keyboard. Otherwise we do fine with just me, the dearly beloved and the four legged boss. My days of dealing with the public are way in the rear view mirror. Ideally I’d like to build it with 3x3 lumber ripped into two pieces with a 10 or 12 degree bevel. 3x3 is not a retail size.
My friend Damjan asked me to clean up the branches of the trees he recently cut down, today I brought the first load. It is a hornbeam tree species, which in my opinion is the best wood for motor fuel.
