Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Green Acres Homestead]

Your suggestion of splitting directly to storage is spot on. I picked up some ICB metal pallet cages and split directly to them. It has saved a ton of time and handling. Nice video.

Love those steel racks but not sure where I could get some. If I am delivering the wood that would not work because I dump my pallets of wood into the delivery truck so I need one end opened. I do not suspect that the steel ones have a door.

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

I didn't know deformed trees begat deformed trees and straight trees begat straight trees. I figured it was environment, not genetics. Learned something new today, and it's still early

Well square1 sometimes it is environmental. Sometimes a fork in the tree was where it once broke. Usually a twist or a big bend is genetics. Very interesting indeed.

 

[joeyd]

I also use ICB cages for my split wood but I like to do all my splitting first then fill the pallet cage. I think the process goes faster this way. When filled level with the top they hold about a face cord.

 

[John_Mc]

I didn't know deformed trees begat deformed trees and straight trees begat straight trees. I figured it was environment, not genetics. Learned something new today, and it's still early

It's both, but the point GAproperty makes is a good one. If you take all your nicely formed trees, you are tilting your stand towards the genetics of the poorer trees. Maybe some of them were poorer due to the environment, but you KNOW the nice ones had what it takes. The "take the best and leave the rest" mentality is known as "high-grading", and doing it can set a stand back significantly. If you do it repeatedly in the same stand, it can take many generations to recover.

 

[rd_macgregor]

In planting garlics I plant the best and eat the rest. Except for the eating part, the same principle applies in forest management. Taking crappy trees out for firewood only makes sense, with little loss in terms of wood. It is a little more challenging to favor the best trees if you are after saw logs.

 

[aeblank]

I'm in the pallet game too. It sure seems to make things faster.

 

[Ryansweatt2004]

I'm doing the pallet thing as well but I also built two of these 1/3 cord racks out of old 2x8 and 2x12 pressure treated decking I picked up from my local transfer Station. Most of the pallets and boards for them came from the transfer station as well. Ya know what they say, one mans trash "scrap wood" is another mans treasure "firewood racks" in my case at least lol.

 

[4570Man]

I built some pallet racks. They didn't survive the trip on my solid wheeled forklift. I would have had a lot better chances of success if I would've tied the tops together after stacking.

 

[DieselBound]

Your suggestion of splitting directly to storage is spot on. I picked up some ICB metal pallet cages and split directly to them. It has saved a ton of time and handling. Nice video.

Excellent! :thumbsup:

I was going to go that route, IBC totes, but I was able to buy my collapsible wire crates for about the same as it would cost me to get my hands on the IBC totes (in my neck of the woods): and hauling the collapsible crates -50 of them- was a lot easier than trying to haul that many IBC totes :laughing: (also was the issue of getting rid of the plastic "bladders") The crates also have one half of one side that folds down, which allows one to reach in from the side to fetch wood for when it's time to toss it into the stove: I will place a crate on the deck and then put tin over to keep it [mostly] dry; flopping down one of the sides negates the need to peel off the tin. Much was motivated by the fact that my wife is only 5'- reaching over the side of a cage/crate would be difficult for her. This is all but a slight bit of icing, as the real cake is in the fact that using something that's palletized like this eliminates two or three handlings of wood- WIN!

Here's the front-end of my "processing" (had recently cut some alder and maple to make way for a fence line- don't often cut live trees):



I suspect that the IBC tote cages might have more volume. I figured that I was getting 1/4 cord in the wire cages I got: measured a wood stack and then loaded it in cages (came out just as I'd estimated). My poor little B7800 can't really deal with more than 1/4 cord!

When the cages are full I then come by with the tractor and forks and haul it back to the home area: right now I'm out of "home area" because I've got my space emptied for the construction of a woodshed, so about 10 cages are scattered around the property. It's been a long way from how I once did it: refer to my avatar.

 

[Creamer]

I am just thinking of bending over and picking the wood out of the bottom of the cages 10 years from now when I am not as able as i am now. Am I worrying about nothing?