Firewood. It’s what happens when life gives you fallen trees and reasonable weather. All you need is willing friends with chainsaws and a wood splitter. January, 2014
THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING POPLAR
Let’s just say it was an unpopular tree. Its roots were “death to mower” and it continually dropped small branches onto the lawn. After years of plotting its demise, Bob and Andy collaborated to get rid of this tree once and for all.
NOT MESSING AROUND
Andy got right down to business with his new chain saw, lopped off half of the tree, limbed it and dragged the branches into a pile.
SECOND ACT
The second half of this tree was more of a challenge, but Bob got out the electric chain saw that Lyle loaned us and together he and Andy finished the job.
PUTTING SPOT IN HIS PLACE
Bob and Andy moved Spot back to his, er, spot when all danger was passed.
THE SPLITTER
A couple of weeks later, Lyle brought a splitter and his chain saw and finished cutting rounds out of the oak tree that had fallen in the yard last Spring. Bob manned the splitter for days on end to get both trees turned into fireplace-sized pieces of wood.
MONSTERS
Some of the oak rounds were so big that Bob had to turn the splitter vertical to fit them in.
MANY HOURS OF WORK
Bob split, Camille stacked and eventually most of the wood was inside the garage. You can see the difference between the poplar and the oak. The oak is yellow while the poplar is white with gray bark. The wood won’t be ready to burn until next Fall because it needs to “season” or dry out. We probably won’t be the folks burning it unless we get ourselves a wood stove between now and then. Most likely we will end up selling it to our neighbors who do have wood stoves.
FATE OF THE OTHER POPLAR
Bob plugged the other poplar, the one Lyle cut down a couple of years ago, with poplar mushroom spores and the mycelium basically ate the stump and sprawling roots. When we returned home, we discovered mushrooms growing around it’s base but they turned out to be oyster mushrooms, not poplar mushrooms. Bob put a tomato cage around the stump to keep the deer from nibbling on the oysters. As you can see from the tracks around our yard after a snowstorm on January 29, the deer are all over our yard. They are hungrier than usual this year, probably due to a population bloom according to neighbors Reda and Fred.
LAST OF THE SPLIT POPLAR
By the time the snow fell, all but this poplar firewood was stacked under cover. Not to worry, this will dry out quickly and get moved under cover with the rest of this year’s firewood bounty.