The Daily Firewood Picture Thread

[g_man]

I like beech too. Split good and dry good. Mine have BBD and most tend to have tight compact tops like an arm sticking up with a closed fist. They are number one on my list mostly because of the BBD.

gg

[Wlmedley]

Granite, I've burnt quite a bit of it over the years but I've found that it's heavy when green and pretty light when it drys out. Doesn't seem to burn as long as oak or hickory. One thing I do like is that it's clean. Wouldn't want my woodshed full of it but mixed with hickory it should be fine.G man the ones up here have a thousand little limbs and are about the hardest tree tops to stack on a brush pile that there are. I'd rather stack pine limbs.

[SwampDonkey]

I wonder what kind of beech we are talking about. I never find it is all that light when dry. Every bit as heavy as oak. Oak is heavier when it's green though. We can't get good beech around here much, it's half dead and a lot of rot because of BBD. I cut one down in the yard, the top was dying out and it was all scabbed up with BBD. That'll be some nice hot firewood next winter. I got it before it started to rot. But had deep inclusions into the wood from the BBD.

I hate thinning with a clearing saw in beech though. Like working in barbed wire, the stuff won't fall like maple will. And there can be some nasty thickets of it. They'll tear a cotton work shirt up with them thorny buds and twigs. Darned stuff. Only thing worst is thinning jack pines.  20 ft long limbs from the ground up. They plant them too open, never make a sawlog with any of them.

[Wlmedley]

I had to look up BBD. Hasn't hit here yet. Most of the really large beech here are hollow and I've had some on my place explode when the tops get so big and heavy that the trunk can no longer support them. Makes a big mess.

[barbender]

No beech here. It looks like the Wisconsin coast of Lake Michigan is as far west as it grows.

[Wlmedley]

Being I had my Beech on the ground I started on one of the Hickory's I needed to cut. Bought a throw bag and small rope so I could get a pull cable attached to the tree. I'm right handed and my right shoulder is worn out. Found out that I can't throw very good with my left hand. I was worn out by the time I got my cable hooked up and ran to a snatch block further up the hill. Started cutting and found out tree was hollow even though it looked healthy enough. Picture shows results. I decided to quit for today. At least I don't have to worry about it falling on my garage which it probably would have eventually have done from the looks of it.

[Wlmedley]

Pretty good size hickory. Will make some good firewood once I figure out how to get it the rest of the way down.

[thecfarm]

The beech you have looks good. Even at the size you have, there are scabs all over the bark here on my land.
I have cut some big beech, old ones too. But have not really seen the scabs go into the wood. Very common for it to be rotted hearted, with no heart for a few feet and then good wood. I burned a lot of it one winter. I found it was hard to split.

[Wlmedley]

So far the beech up here seems healthy and I've got quite a few trees but you're right it doesn't split easily or straight. The squirrels love them though.

[SwampDonkey]

Black bears love them to, the nuts. They do to the tops what they do to a red oak. Make a 'nest', breaking off limbs for the nuts. Monkey bears.    When I cut a year ago along the road, I left a beech I seen on the bank of the road. It was only about 20" tall. Future monkey bear tree. They've already got a red oak ripped to pieces along the road. The only black cherry I have on the place, well forget about any logs from that tree. :D

[cutterboy]

Bill, there is some nice firewood in that hickory. Unfortunately, hung up hickory trees can be difficult to get down. The small top branches are very clingy.

Question: Is it unusual for you to have bare ground this time of year? I thought that up in the hills you would get snow from time to time.

[cutterboy]

Some pictures of beech trees with BBD. Half of my trees have it and half don't.




In the next picture the tree on the right has BBD and the big tree in the middle is a 30" beech that died quite suddenly. One year it seemed very much alive and the next year it didn't put out any leaves.


BTW, my beech doesn't split easily either....Cutter

[thecfarm]

I think I only have one beech tree without scrabs.
I had to look at the leaves to figure out what kind of tree it was. 
I have the tractor plugged in and chaps are hanging up in the back of the OWB getting warmed up too.
I will be cutting up some dead pine for firewood.

[SwampDonkey]

The inclusions of BBD get deeper as the tree heals and puts on diameter, the scars don't close and smooth over like they would with an axe scar. Beech is also a tree that can form buds around a scar or a cut stump or injured roots. Some places it forms thickets off root suckers.

[g_man]

I had one w/o scabs that I thought must be resistant because all the near by beech were loaded. The June 2016 I saw it covered with the white secretions of the Beech Scale insect. Hard to see but the tree to the right of it is all scabbed up and typical.





That October I saw that the Nectria fungus that gets into the pores that the Beech Scale make had started to bloom orange and red. That fungus is the cause of BBD. But the "harmless" Beech Scale bugs have to poke there holes first before the fungus can enter the tree.





The tree died several years later and became firewood. I guess I'm lucky my Beech splits so good !

gg