It's so easy to take things for granted

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big dude

Sous Chef
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
Messages
617
Location
Greenback, Tn
I've spent my entire adult life surrounded by the hardwood forest of East Tenn and never gave much thought to having ready supplies of hardwood, until I started reading about the difficulties of city dwellers and those from the deep south getting wood. I now know I'm blessed to be able to expend a little effort and have all the wood I want for smoking and my fireplace. This first pic is a pile of new oak (except the small cross stack hickory on the left) I just finished stacking. It's about 3'x 6' and all came from a piece of wood 25" long x 29" dia. I had to cut a large red oak that died and still have the 28" dia x 30' long main log to cut into firewood. I'm fortunate to have a farmer neighbor with a tractor mounted splitter. My other neighbor just brought me a load of hickory from some trees he had to cut to build a house. I hate that all of you are not as lucky as many of us in this respect and have to go long distances or pay high prices for your smoking wood.

A couple of pics of my cooking area, the wood on the smoker rack is wild cherry from local trees that blew down in a storm.


A picture looking down my drive at the wooded hillside. It looks the same in every direction except the trees are 30' from the house in two directions. Notice it's nearly are hardwood.
 
Nice looking place you got there...perhaps a little rake action or leaf blower on that patio might be in order. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
 
Bruce B said:
Nice looking place you got there...perhaps a little rake action or leaf blower on that patio might be in order. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
I thought I might get a leaf comment - been waiting for the Bradford pear to finish dropping it's leaves, which is usually near Christmas - really hate that aspect of them, as it makes me do leaves twice.
 
Bruce B said:
Nice looking place you got there...perhaps a little rake action or leaf blower on that patio might be in order. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

like patio used to look. I cut down every damm tree in my yard cept the fig
 
I get some oak, ash, alotta maple, apple, some pear, occasional shagbark hickory. Just a matter a gettin with the right folks round here. Workin on a deal with the forester one county north ta get cherry tops durin there next loggin operation.

Just bought a splitter, gonna finish put it back tagether in the spring, got a wisconsin v4 enigne an a 35 gpm pump runin a 24 inch cylinder. Should split bout anythin I need. Was kinda a mess but only paid $350 fer the whole works, I beam came outa a local truck scale that was scrapped. The thin is 6 1/2' wide an a touch over 11' long. Ain't got no idear what it weights yet, when its all done gonna run it across a scale.
 
Hey Dude..very nice crib you got there and that scenery is excellent. Now as far as cutting/splitting/hauling/stacking and listening to the naggin of certain wimmen...I just as soon have charcoal and chunks. Know it aint as good but sure a lot less work:) They ran a cute article in the Whiskeyta Falls Newspaper one time of a fictional but typical person who decide to start cutting his own wood for the fireplace. First he have to have a new 4x4 truck to buck the rough terrain..then you got to buy a new trailer..then you gotta have a splitter of course..and a new barn to stack the wood. Time the story ended the fella had spent about a million bucks for the free wood. Sounded sorta plausible since I had done it previously..just didnt invest quite a million unless a person figgers the cost of the labor into the equation. I dont work for free ya know?
Hill Billy that sounds like a heckuva splitter you got there.

bigwheel
 
Just split up a rack of pecan wood this weekend. Rack is 48" high X 10' long. Will post pics of it tomorrow if it's not raining. One of the brothers I work for had it sawed up and brought to me. Like you I know how lucky I am to have access to all the pecan, red oak and hickory I would ever need.
 

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