I skimmed through. The first read was you were out tapping maples. I was about ready to head up. lol
Lol Sean, nope that’s Bill Schiller. We went out to look at the ice today.
Man, look at all that dead hard maple. That would be fantastic fuel!
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I know, that is why I went back to reread it because I couldn’t believe Bill posted. 
You gotta let them grow a bit bigger before you tap them. Hard maple makes good syrup, and is has really high sugar content. However, since your forest is a bit sparse, I would start planting them in rows to make them easier to tap and run tubing, but that is where my mind is at this time of year, not everyones.
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Not my land, and I am not interested in growing Maple. Only White Pine for us.
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I hate to admit that I am so covered up with wood I am having to just set it a fire. I already have next winter heating wood in the barn drying and have a couple or three years of motor fuel bagged up and stored away with much more coming in daily .
Free wood to any one that will haul it !!
Have Wood Will Travel
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You should make it into charcoal. Then you can use it as biochar or in the grill or even gasp a charcoal gasifier. The ash is a good fertilizer for your grass(sprinkled lightly) (bark produces more ash), and the char especially if it is inoculated will help a garden or your field. Might as well not waste it. You are spending the time to burn it anyway.
Cows will eat the char as well which grinds it and inoculates it for you. It did something else as well to like aid digestion and something else. I forgot there was a research paper I read on it a few years back on it.
Hey Wayne! Winston Churchill once said:
“Golf - a good walk wasted”
I would call that a good DOW wasted.
I read your gov decided to let go of the US fuel reserve. I didn’t know it included gasifier fuel 
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I looked it up:
"When ingested orally, biochar has been shown to improve the nutrient intake efficacy, adsorb toxins and to generally improve animal health "
The article cites references dating back to the early 1900s
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Thanks for the article Sean.
When I dump the ash and char from my trucks I always leave it so the cows can eat and then spread anywhere over the farm .
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Wayne, your cows are Blessed and are healthy eating What comes up from the earth. What you give them from the earth. And they in return bless you with cow pie fertilisers back to the earth and meat on someone’s table.
Bob
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I know. Don’t take it as a criticism either. To me, it seemed like a waste watching that burn, when there are opportunities to do it slightly differently (which is the motivation behind your gasifier) and might help improve your bottomline. Especially when fertilizer prices are on the rise and the micronutrients in wood ash are expensive anyway. I know that isn’t enough to do your garden much less a field, but I know there is more coming especially over the next several years. 
I am also still waging my personal soil improvement war with my soil and right now i have to improve the biology of the soil. It is just immediately what see.
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For my 75th birthday my son and son-in-law law cut up the monster (4.5’ dia) cottonwood. I mostly provided inspection services.
I started the 1st split today, 4 wedges and it is nearly completed. Going to keep me busy for a LOOONG time
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Mike, there are two sides to every coin.
I think here one says HWWT and the other SHS (Stay Home Splitting)
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Nah, just tell him he needs to help you split, then make him push those up onto the splitter. OR if you -really- want to impress him, send him these pictures, and you can do something like this:
Bobcat rentals are cheap compared to medical bills.
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You are gonna need a bigger gasifier.
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I counted the growth rings and it appears that the cottonwood got started in 1937 = 85 yo.
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he is going to need that shark tooth chunker too.
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Happy birthsday Mike!
Thats a monster! Althugh wery fast growth. I wuld have guessed it being in the neighbourhood of 150 years.
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Poplars, cottonwoods and aspens are all members of the Populus genus. That looked like a black cottonwood. We have eastern cottonwoods. Now I don’t recall ours ever putting up shoots, but that doesn’t mean they won’t, and they can be coppiced up to around 25 years. The wood is soft, light and it burns fast, but they are/were commonly grown for shade trees because they are fast growing.
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We have them too. Im currently burning one in the woodstove as a matter of fact. Stinky wood but gives lots of heat. Dryes fast too.
Those poplars are ok. Its the aspens that are the absolute worst. They just devour the land once they get started and are almost impossible to get rid of.
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