Why I Oughta...

Do you have a pile of Norway Maple firewood laying around?  Processed (into rounds) or unprocessed.  Split or unsplit.  I don't think it matters.   What doesn't matter, Jake?   I don't think it matters if you've done everything you can to Norway Maple firewood to get it dry and seasoned.  You'll still have some fungus growth.  See below for a peek at the mushrooms that are growing on some of my Norway Maple that I've been working through since last Fall: We had this large Maple tree taken down last Fall and I started to split the rounds immediately .  I've worked through a bunch of it (not all, though) in the 12 months since.  I've stored the wood up on racks to keep it off the ground and it hasn't mattered. I've even measured the moisture content .   Note...this pile is NOT covered.  But, it still gets mushrooms.   #20 on my 2023 to-do list was to finish processing this wood.   Have I done that? ...

Back in last October (2022), we had the large Norway Maple tree taken down in our front yard.  The guys who removed the tree chip'd a bunch of the smaller stuff and then hauled all of the larger material back to the far reaches our yard .  I had them put as much of it on the rack that I had back there to begin to dry out.   You can see what the original pile of rounds looked like in this post if you scroll all the way down to the bottom.   Almost as soon as the tree was taken down, I began to split some of the rounds .  Here's a post from November showing some of that work .   I was curious about the moisture content and how long Norway Maple would take to season - as some online suggest it is 'fast'.   By December, I had blown through most of the kiln-dried firewood that I had delivered, so that free'd up the racks by the side of our house.  I decided to move some of the recently-split Maple firewood up there .   N...

In October, I began to split all the Norway Maple wood that came from the mature tree that we took down in our front yard .  The crew that took the tree down processed the trunk and major limbs into rounds of various lengths and put them up on a rack in the far back of our property.   That work continued in November and December.   In November, I decided to begin to attack some of the large pieces with a splitting wedge to get some smaller pieces that I could split with my axe and that's been really helpful in getting some of the larger pieces processed.  I've used the fact that some of the wood is just sitting on the ground as a sort-of forcing function to compel me to split those pieces first.  They're the largest ones because I couldn't lift them up on the rack due to their weight.  By November 11th, I noted that some of the freshly-split Norway Maple was *VERY* high in moisture with a reading of 50% moisture .  But, a month later, it was ...

I've gone about splitting, stacking and seasoning firewood in different bursts (of activity) over the past few years.  Usually, I process, split, stack the wood during the winter months in preparation for Fall/next Winter burning.  Here's a look at some January 2021 winter-time splitting .  I've done this with a splitting axe.  But, the Norway Maple rounds that I recently put on the new rack in the backyard are different than what I've dealt with previously.  Some of these rounds are *so* big and *so* heavy that I can't really move them, let alone put them up on a block to begin splitting.  So, the axe has worked, but it has mostly - what I call - 'nibbled' around the edge.  You can see those results here from the end of October where there are a lot of thin slices.   My Dad recommended that I try a splitting wedge on the very big, borderline immovable rounds.  The theory is that the wedge can split them in-place and by removing 1/2 to ...

I mentioned that I started to split some of the Norway Maple tree firewood that resulting from the removal of the large tree in our front yard.  In a post a couple weeks ago, I talked about how I've started to split some of the larger rounds with my axe.  I've taken a slow-but-steady approach to the project and will continue to split this wood over the next few months.  The first splits resulted in pieces that I am putting up on a rack to season for the year.  I did, however, want to begin to track the moisture content of this freshly cut, green wood.  Here, below, is a photo of my moisture meter showing 50% moisture in this piece:  The moisture level that split, dry firewood needs to get to in order to be considered 'seasoned' is below 20% - so we have a long way to go.  Norway Maple is known for 'drying quickly' , so I'll test this theory by trying to track these freshly split pieces in the coming weeks/months.  Will it be ready this season?...

As I mentioned in the post showing how we had our Norway Maple tree removed , we had the wood processed into rounds.  16 to 18" rounds.  That I could split as they dried out.  I wanted to see how hard these were going to be, so I put one of the larger rounds up on another one and began chopping with my axe.  I was able to split the round into about 40 different pieces.  Knowing I pay between 25 and 40 cents per piece of firewood, that means that one round processed into about $12-$15 of firewood.  Currently unseasoned firewood, but....still...firewood.  Here, below, is a look at the wood that came from just ONE round split by hand: As I empty out one of the racks close to the house, I'll start to fill it with this Norway Maple split wood.  Based on what I read on the Web, it doesn't take long for Norway Maple to season from green to 20% in six to eight weeks . That means...that we'll be able to burn this stuff THIS SEASON if I run out of wood....