Trees I can't hardly sell.

[muleman]

I have a lot of ash trees on my farm. The emerald ash borers have moved east from OHIO(thanks folks) and are now this far east. We are under quarantine so any wood harvested has to stay within the county it was harvested. This is the case for Pa. counties as well. The end result is you can not hardly give ash trees away so we are now cutting them for firewood. Got almost half the wood shed filled and more are down and just need hauled up and split. Have a good supply of slab wood from the Amish sawmill as well.

 

[snow dog]

who's in Ohio? why would a little pest move to your part of heaven

 

[tsaw]

You are gonna be toasty warm this winter.
That slab wood burns fast and hot. And the Ash firewood is good too. Back in the 80's. just a half mile from our duplex, was a birch sawmill. They sold a 4X4X8 cord (a real loggers cord) of slabwood for $5.00 bucks. So, we were heating for 50.00 bucks a winter. The extra labor involved in handling the smaller pieces outweighed the cost of 10 cords of logs. One thing that was really AWESOME was the piles of birch bark - that you could take by the pick up load. And everyone knows how that shit burns!

 

[muleman]

Around here most get $10 for a pickup load and they fill my dump truck for $30. It is convenient for me as they are only 1 1/2 mile from the house. They cut hardwood, mostly oak and ash with some cherry and walnut. When it gets good and dried it burns nice. I haul a couple buckets from the pile and dump them in front of the boiler with the skid steer.

 

[snow dog]

does the boiler make hot water for the green houses ?

 

[Erik]

too bad you can't build a wood kiln.
bake the ash lumber at 350 for a couple of days and all bugs, fungus, etc... is dead.
this also carmelizes the wood sugars and makes it pretty close to rot-proof, even in ground contact situations.

 

[muleman]

does the boiler make hot water for the green houses ?

yes. And the house domestic and and heat as well as snowmelt in the porch.

 

[snow dog]

wow, what knid of boiler is it

 

[muleman]

Central Boiler model 6048 rated for 500,000 btu. I run it at 190 degree F because of the long runs and so many units it is run to. I can load it full and run all night in real cold and still have 170 or better in the morning. If we are running wash and heat and snowmelt it takes a lot of btu's. This winter will be a real test with both greenhouses added. We try to maintain 60 in the seed starting one and the other will be whatever it is. As the plants get going we will move them to the new one to grow.