Fuel for the stove

Well, I would have liked to have gotten this done sooner, but needless to see we have had a lot on out plates. I figured I'd need 5 to 6 cord to satisfy most of our heating needs. We do have oil backup, but I'd rather not use it at all if possible.

I had been a little disappointed when I first discovered our woodlot had almost no hardwood in it. But then I realized I had an abundance of tamarack, and that would do just fine. I plan to supplement that with free waste wood from my logging contractors.

I've never burned tamarack before. To be honest, I personally haven't burned a whole lot of it in my life. We burned a couple of cords a year when I was a kid, but we mostly used coal. I also knew larch (tamarack) was rot resistant. So I figured some of the dead standing trees would be good candidates for firewood, because they are dead, dry, and off the ground. Problem was, most of the dead ones had been dead for quite some time. In fact most even had conks and fungus growing out of them. I cut a small one down, not expecting much. But to my surprise, the center was hard as a rock! The outside ring of sapwood was a little Punky. The way I figure it, once dry, its like a log warped in kindling.

So I decided to try another experiment. The previous owner of the house let the next door neighbors cut a bunch of trees, with he intention of... well I don't know what. Skidding them out with 4wheelers, or a tractor, or ....something? They had cut all of the merchantable wood on their own lot long ago. In any event, they either decided it was too much work or their method of wood extraction fell through because they left a couple dozen (of the largest) trees laying on the ground to rot. Some were Larch, some were spruce, some were balsam fir. I wanted to see if the larch on the ground was as good as the dead standing larch. It was! A little heavier, but still sound in the middle. So as long as they dry in time. I'm all set for winter!