A Good Day: Part 2

[In my last post I explained how I was driving my tractor, with the brush hog on the three point hitch, through deep weeds. I was simultaneously fretting over my inadequate winter firewood supply.]

Unexpectedly, the front tire popped high and the whole tractor tilted wildly to the side. WTF? I clicked off the PTO, hydraulically lifted the rear implement, and jammed on the brakes. I did this all in an instant. That’s the way to be good to your machinery! The front tire hadn’t come crashing down yet. I hadn’t run over whatever I’d just found. No harm, no foul! I throttled down and gingerly backed up. Then I set the brake, shut down the motor, and hopped out to investigate.

There in the weeds, absolutely invisible from above but totally obvious as I stood there, was a tree trunk. It had fallen sometime this summer. The weeds had covered it with flawless camouflage.

I paced down its length and found the spot where it had uprooted; cleverly hidden behind some tall ferns just inside the forest edge. I sat down on the log. Now what?

Are we not reasoning monkeys? Can we not weigh options?

Plowing and planting a deer plot is Springtime Curmudgeon’s problem. This tree was not the solution to Current Curmudgeon’s firewood dilemma (green trees need time to dry before they’re good firewood). But the log was part of the solution to Next Fall Curmudgeon’s firewood problem.

I thought. And I rested. It was the weekend after all. The tractor waited patiently. The leafless trees looked pretty in the pale sun. If you wait long enough usually a chickadee will show up. I love chickadees. I waited.

No chickadee showed up. But I became more aware of my surroundings. I had removed myself from the constant fret of civilization. I was happy sitting on that log. Peace!

There is nothing more beautiful than peace. I decided to do a solid for Next Fall Curmudgeon. Why not? He’s a good guy, right? As soon as I decided to attack the fallen log and prepare it to be firewood in fall 2024, my brain picked up other options I had heretofore missed.

Off in the forest, away from the shabby field where the tractor was parked, I noticed a dead tree. Nothing special about that. If you’re paying attention, you know forests are loaded with dead trees. However, this was my favorite kind of dead tree; perfect firewood! It was dead, the bark had sloughed off, it was still standing, and it was 100% sound. It wasn’t big, it was about the diameter of a roll of toilet paper. This is also perfect. Larger diameter trees are more efficient when you’re hauling tonnage out of the forest but they require extra labor to split them to the right size and they have to dry after splitting. When wood has dried just right for firewood it gets a gray tint. I could see the tint on the bare wood from 30 yards away.

I try to be appreciative whenever I find a tree that’s perfect for firewood right now. This little find wasn’t a lot but it was something Current Curmudgeon needs and it was sitting right there!

Who am I to deny good fortune when nature sends it my way?

Back on the tractor, I turned around and headed for the garage, with the brush hog shredding another 6’ swath behind me (why waste time?). At the garage I have a little electric chainsaw. I topped it off with chain oil, grabbed a battery, and headed back. I cleared my third brush hog swath as I went.

I cut down the little dead tree and bucked it into unimpressive 5’ lengths (suitable for my 5 ½’ tractor bucket). Since the tree was small, the logs weren’t heavy. I filled the bucket, drove it to my woodshed (clearing yet another brush hog swath while en route), and dropped the mess into my sawbuck. (A sawbuck is a crude wooden frame that holds short small-ish logs about waist high so they’re easier to saw into pieces. Firewood is hard. It’s double hard for a man working alone. Every little labor saving trick us evolved monkeys can invent is worth its weight in gold!)

Optimistically, I went out again. Sure enough I found a second small tree; twin to the first. Huzzah! Into the bucket it went! By then it was getting dark and the game had to end.

It doesn’t take much to dice a pile of small logs already balanced on a sawbuck and my pole light was sufficient to see. I used my real chainsaw with the sawbuck. Then I hauled the results to my house and stoked up the fire. Being a nerd I checked the water content. It was about 12%. That reading totally made my day!

(In case you’re a nerd like me, here’s the details. Wood is (or was) a living thing. It is complex like all living things are. It is not merely a uniform man-made material like a bar of aluminum or a brick. Live trees contain a stupidly huge amount of water; often more than 50% of a log’s mass. Burn that crap in your woodstove and you’ll get a lot of smoke and plug your chimney with creosote. Not good! Dead trees you find in the forest may have more moisture or less moisture. If a dead tree is elevated off the wet soil and under certain conditions… it can be quite dry; like what I’d just found. If a dead tree is in contact with the soil it’s often wet and will therefore need a while to cure. If a dead tree stays wet long enough it rots and becomes useless as fuel.

With firewood the goal is to air dry usable sized chunks of wood until they’re under 20% moisture content. Ideally I burn stuff even drier than that. It generally takes at least a year for the wood to “cure” down to <20%. Its final content is actually dependent on atmospheric conditions. In case you’re wondering, the kiln dried shit you buy at Home Depot was officially 15% when it left the kiln and it slowly adjusted to ambient relative humidity wherever it was shipped. The final complete end state depends on whether you live in a rain forest or Death Valley.

Now you know why I was so happy to find a standing dead tree that clocked in at 12% moisture content.)

So yeah, it’s just a damn log but I was delighted. Discovering a couple tiny dead trees that were exceptionally dry felt like a lottery win. I burned them over Thanksgiving and was nice and warm. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I spent much of Thanksgiving evening basking in the heat of a toasty fire. That’s what it’s all about!

I’m still going to run out of firewood sometime in March. But maybe I pushed back the day of reckoning a week or two?