White Oak - Old Growth

While splitting firewood this week, I ran into some old growth white oak. The tree was struck by lightening 2 years ago and never recovered; it died last year. I cut it this summer and let it sit outside the wood shed for 6 months before splitting it. You can see from the picture the 3 distinct rings on the outside and the solid center. When splitting the wood the outside rings would split off clean from the dense center. When you compare to pieces of equal size the center weighs at least 25% more.

Most people don't want to deal with the large tree because they are hard to work with unless you have a tractor. But the extra work is worth it to have wood that burns well and lasts longer in the fireplace. Also each log produces a greater number of pieces of wood. I really enjoy using the center or heart of the log as a night time log since they burn all night.

Yes we have a tractor but little help since it doesn't have a loader. We simply rolled these logs onto our trailer manually then stacked them near the wood shed. I usually cut the logs 20-22 inches but when dealing with the big "boys" I cut them about 16 inches to reduce the weight!

Our wood shed is 20'x20' so we can keep about 2.3 years of wood in when full. We built it to handle 2 years because I wanted to stay a year ahead on wood in case anything ever happened to me. We try to look at safety prior to any job so nothing ever happens but lets face it things do happen and farming/homesteading can be dangerous work. Luke is getting older but still not able to run a chainsaw at this point, maybe another 2 years...

Most families that homestead use large amount of wood each winter plus some in the summer for canning, and I enjoy reading about how other tackle keeping the wood dry in the winter. It is good to learn from others! Thanks for reading and commenting!