Bass Wood first time burning

[beenthere]

SD
Don't know how you can stand to live in a house temp at 80 deg.
71 here at most, and then only if sitting still, or have a fever.
Is that for your mother while she weaves on the weaving machine. ??

[Otis1]

Maybe something to do with soil disturbances? I see a lot of old logging roads that the shoulders will grow yellow birch, hemlock, and tamarack with none of them within sight (site)? in good upland sugar maple/ northern hardwoods. 

[SwampDonkey]

Beenthere, a dry 80 degrees is nicer than a humid one. 75-80 degrees feels nice to me. We also open windows a lot around here for fresh air as well as an exchanger that comes on now and again. Windows are always open, often the door, when working in the shop. Amazing how the temp hardly drops with windows up, of course that's with no wind sailing through and a stick of wood in the stove. 

My grandfather liked it close to 90 degrees reading in his rocking chair or snoozing on the porch couch. Porch was insulated and heated. All those years sleeping on the ground at night, after working in the woods, in a Hudson's Bay robe in shack or lean to by a fire. No warm office out in the bushes.    90° is too hot for me, but I never had to work and sleep at night under the stars like a cowboy either.

Mother gets cold and digs out the sweater if it's below 75°. That's from standing at a potato conveyor in the cold picking out rocks and mud by the bucket fulls in the cold wind for 30 years.    Mother doesn't weave, what gave you that notion? 

30° and wind outside now, a fire is going to. 

[SwampDonkey]

Once in awhile here you see an old farm field that tamarack took over, more common is white spruce, aspen, fir, maple, ash, and white birch, some times a lot of black cherry. Out behind the house here in the old orchard, it's full of cherry. I planted a lot of yellow birch through it. There are a couple big old monster tamarack there to. You know how them limbs are almost as long as they are tall? I've seen turkey roost in tamarack many times.

Turkey on a tamarack branch one morning, behind here in the old orchard.



Up the road here a step I saw 30 of them buzzards in tamaracks one morning. 

[Ianab]

I'm curious as to the extent of the tamarack stands pre-settlement around here. I've read some articles that suggest they were more prevalent on upland sites, but failed to grow back after the initial wave of logging.

Forest succession? 

Where you cut down an old growth forest, but those tree types don't do well in open ground. So a different mix regenerates. After a hundred years or more, the mature forest starts to support the more shade tolerant species, and they gradually take over. 

You see that very clearly locally. In the last century there was still old growth native forest being logged. If it was left to regenerate you got a very different mix of trees. The original species like Rimu and Tawa simply wont grow in exposed conditions. But other trees will, and eventually create a forest canopy where only the shade tolerant species can thrive, so they become dominant again. A rimu can live as a sapling under a sheltered canopy for decades. just biding it's time. Any sun loving competition has died off. Then when a larger tree falls and creates a light tunnel, the rimu takes advantage of that, and goes for the light. If can out compete the other species, because it's already 9ft tall, even though it's been there ~30 years. 

So looking at a forest that was logged ~100 years ago is VERY different from one that has never been touched. You might see smaller rimu and tawa starting to break though the canopy, but it's going to take a couple more centuries for them to mature. So the effect is possibly more pronounced in our local forest types. 

[SwampDonkey]

I can't think of any native trees here that won't take advantage of open ground. The thing that influences the new stand is how fast you can grow and if there is viable seed ready to sprout or a seedling ready to take advantage, or a root system to support suckering . A pin cherry can grow from a 100 year old seed in the dirt to 3 feet the first season. It's the size/shape of a small ball bearing, 6 or 7  mm across. A maple seedling grows about an inch, from seed about the same. An establish seedling or sapling is delayed up to 3 years before it's growth takes a spirt. An aspen sucker can grow 3 feet as soon as the weather permits. You will see all kinds of aspen stands in my area full of maple and ash and some fir, but they can not out grow the aspen. Fir will not grow well in shade, but survives, some found to be 3 feet tall and 50 years old. The aspen dies off by 90 years, the hardwood grows right along and takes over. Those tamarack seed blew in from wetland around the field. We tend to clear land right up to the wet lands, not much buffer. Trees on the west side of the field shoot seed on the wind. Prevailing wind here is westerly. You should observe the yellow needles of tamarack as they fall off every year. See how far those old needles fly on the wind onto a ploughed field. Seed will go further, they are winged to take advantage. The old orchard here is surrounded by open fields. In my old orchard, I have maples, elm, aspen, cherry (both pin and black), birch, spruce, fir have all invaded. I only planted birch, the rest is wild. In the case of cherry, birds, bears and coons move it great distances. I have 2 black cherry in my woods, the bears go wild over them, they are in pretty rough shape these days. Oaks up there, the same. They have no chance against bears.  

[Tim in New York]

Have not burned any basswood in a long time.  There does not seem to be any on the hill behind our house.  One thing i always remember about basswood is that its the only wood I could smell the smoke outside and know what was in the stove.  Kind of a sweet and strong smell.  Where I grew up we would cut a few blocks from a down tree to split up small for kindling.

[Corley5]

I burned a bunch of basswood along with beech and ash that was too far gone to sell. My outdoor boiler ate it right up. As the weather got colder I had to fire with hardwood at night and was glad when the junk was gone. I couldn't beat the price on the stuff. We used to leave basswood in the woods to go back on the ground rather than wasting labor and fuel to make it into firewood.