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There's this bug, the emerald ash borer, that's making its way across the midwest, killing all the ash trees. We have two. A big one and a small one. I just happened to have someone come in to trim the big one last year, and they told me there were signs of the borer. I think they caught it early enough that it could be saved. I had them both treated.
I told my neighbor that his trees had the borer. This was summer, and they showed damage already. He didn't do anything about it. Nor this spring. In the late summer he started getting quotes to have them cut down. He finally had them cut down last week.
He and his wife are young, newly married, and don't have a lot of money. He didn't feel it was worth treating them, financially speaking. The three trees in question are on the north side of his lot, so they don't actually do much for him anyway. Personally, as much as I love trees, these particular ones shaded my garden, so it benefits me to have them removed.
And then it benefitted me again because he gave me a bunch of the wood!
In the meantime, we're getting a fireplace insert to burn wood efficiently. An open fireplace sends all the warm air from your house right up the chimney. Until now. We only built fires in the spring and fall, when it wasn't too cold out. So now we'll be able to burn all winter, and potentially heat the house with wood.
We still have a whole tree's worth of wood from when we had our big maple tree cut down. We'll finally be able to use that up.
And then there's the matter of the rest of my neighbor's trees. He has five more. He's hoping to save one of them, but he'll have the rest cut down next year. I'm pretty sure I can have all of that wood. I'll have to pay him something for it, though. It will cost him a bit extra to have it cut into firewood lengths.
Aside from that, I'll have to rent a splitter for a couple of days. I'm hoping that this firewood is cheaper than natural gas. Of course I'll never make my money back on the fireplace insert - those things cost as much as a new furnace. But the point of getting it was to be able to have a fire in the winter.
I told my neighbor that his trees had the borer. This was summer, and they showed damage already. He didn't do anything about it. Nor this spring. In the late summer he started getting quotes to have them cut down. He finally had them cut down last week.
He and his wife are young, newly married, and don't have a lot of money. He didn't feel it was worth treating them, financially speaking. The three trees in question are on the north side of his lot, so they don't actually do much for him anyway. Personally, as much as I love trees, these particular ones shaded my garden, so it benefits me to have them removed.
And then it benefitted me again because he gave me a bunch of the wood!
In the meantime, we're getting a fireplace insert to burn wood efficiently. An open fireplace sends all the warm air from your house right up the chimney. Until now. We only built fires in the spring and fall, when it wasn't too cold out. So now we'll be able to burn all winter, and potentially heat the house with wood.
We still have a whole tree's worth of wood from when we had our big maple tree cut down. We'll finally be able to use that up.
And then there's the matter of the rest of my neighbor's trees. He has five more. He's hoping to save one of them, but he'll have the rest cut down next year. I'm pretty sure I can have all of that wood. I'll have to pay him something for it, though. It will cost him a bit extra to have it cut into firewood lengths.
Aside from that, I'll have to rent a splitter for a couple of days. I'm hoping that this firewood is cheaper than natural gas. Of course I'll never make my money back on the fireplace insert - those things cost as much as a new furnace. But the point of getting it was to be able to have a fire in the winter.
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no subject
Date: 2015-10-22 03:21 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-10-22 11:43 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-10-22 11:45 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 03:52 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 03:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 03:57 am (UTC)From:My biggest problem, with both splitting and cutting with the chainsaw, is that there's no safe way to hold the pieces. Few of them stood on end, and for cutting with the saw, I had to hold them down with my foot - too close to the bar. And the chain tends to push them around. When I did that cutting, I tried to move out of view of the house, so Cindy didn't see it. :-)
no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 04:14 pm (UTC)From:You are very kind to your wife. The problems you mention and a few others are exactly why I learned to split them using non sharp, and relatively lightweight "tools".
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Date: 2015-10-30 02:29 pm (UTC)From:I love my little electric log splitter. It works great. Cost me $400, but that's less than one propane tank delivery, and well worth it. But (as you know) I have a whole forest of trees around me to split.