Firewood business with my son

[m1garand762]

My 12 year old nephew works with me almost every weekend my parents and his parents keep him busy during the week Al summer and Saturday morning most weekends he is at the farm ready to work by 7 am and he shows up after church on Sunday. Never asking for a dime from anyone but we always give him something for helping

 

[airbiscuit]

My son is 10. ...

He did great today stacking the wood. Mostly pecan and oak with a little black walnut.

Black Walnut is too pretty to burn.

 

[Molalla1]

Black Walnut is too pretty to burn.

Makes for some nice gun stocks . . .

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Black Walnut is too pretty to burn.

I agree, gorgeous! I have a pretty good stock of milled black walnut and 3 or 4 logs to get to the mill yet. These were from limbs too small to mill.

 

[deezler]

Black Walnut is too pretty to burn.

I have hundreds of them growing on my property.... put dozens of small ones from our initial land clearing through the woodstove already.

When you get straight grain pieces from the main trunks or big branches, it splits so quick and cleanly with a satisfying POP. But then you see that beautiful purple heartwood inside and just feel kinda bad about where it's headed.

The other main species of tree I tend to saw up is black cherry - often a gorgeous dark orange inside and makes me feel similarly.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

I have hundreds of them growing on my property.... put dozens of small ones from our initial land clearing through the woodstove already.

When you get straight grain pieces from the main trunks or big branches, it splits so quick and cleanly with a satisfying POP. But then you see that beautiful purple heartwood inside and just feel kinda bad about where it's headed.

The other main species of tree I tend to saw up is black cherry - often a gorgeous dark orange inside and makes me feel similarly.

Black Cherry is my favorite wood to burn. Love walking out of the house and smelling that amazing smell. I am lucky enough to have a tote full of it for this year.

 

[deezler]

Black Cherry is my favorite wood to burn. Love walking out of the house and smelling that amazing smell. I am lucky enough to have a tote full of it for this year.

Same. I've got 8 IBC totes full of it (out of 15 total). Some of it was green and growing until September though, hope it cures up in time for the end of winter.

 

[deezler]

Pretty much sold out of firewood already this year. Sold a nice trailer load for $200 and a few smaller loads for a grand total of $290 worth of firewood. Not bad for a 10 year old. He is tickled pink with his fat wallet.

We never went the firewood kiosk route this year, ran out of time. It is always an option to maximize profits next year.

I need to get my 9-year old son more interested in doing this with me. He tends to complain about helping with the log splitter, but then begrudgingly runs the lever for me until I let him off the hook. Need to get a flash of cash in front of his face to show him how lucrative it could be!

Not sure I really want to (or have time to) build a delivery customer base, but I have enough space on my busy road frontage to set up a kiosk. Hopefully my adjacent neighbor wouldn't hate me for it (I should ask him).

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Same. I've got 8 IBC totes full of it (out of 15 total). Some of it was green and growing until September though, hope it cures up in time for the end of winter.

We don't have a ton of it down here unfortunately. I wish I had 8 totes of it.

I need to get my 9-year old son more interested in doing this with me. He tends to complain about helping with the log splitter, but then begrudgingly runs the lever for me until I let him off the hook. Need to get a flash of cash in front of his face to show him how lucrative it could be!

Not sure I really want to (or have time to) build a delivery customer base, but I have enough space on my busy road frontage to set up a kiosk. Hopefully my adjacent neighbor wouldn't hate me for it (I should ask him).

9 might be a TAD too early for him to give a crap about money. At 8 or 9 my kid had absolutely zero concept of money and what things cost. Over the last year that has changed a lot, he is almost 11 though. You still have time.

We were going to do a kiosk this year as well, but I ran out of time to get it up and running. If you have a good location you can turn a good profit that way. That $100 face cord turns into $200 sold as 1 sqft bundles. A bit more work on the front end bundling though, and you have to factor in a loss due to potential theft. We still on planning on doing it, maybe next year. My plan is to ramp it up a little bit bigger every year if I can keep him interested.

 

[Herness]

My 12 year old nephew works with me almost every weekend my parents and his parents keep him busy during the week Al summer and Saturday morning most weekends he is at the farm ready to work by 7 am and he shows up after church on Sunday. Never asking for a dime from anyone but we always give him something for helping

I am sure he will be a very successful man one day. Have another advice for all the business owner out there - please forget about the mailing list as it is a very small percentage of customer which actually read them The best from my experience is to use texting app for business instead of it and you can be sure that someone reads the information.