Building Unity Farm - Managing wood

Last weekend I drove to West Bridgewater, MA and picked up a 500 pound SuperSplitter  (J Model 6.5hp Honda engine).  It’s now installed in the wood processing area with 10 cords of wood to be split on one side and 10 cords of self-built storage racks on the other.Here’s our wood management plan by tree species:Eastern Red Cedar - we never cut cedar, which is a slow growing resinous tree that lives for 800 years.   We have hundreds of cedars on the farm, some of which were planted at the edges of pastures in the 1800’s.   Cedar waxwings eat the berries and spread the seeds.   As our Revolutionary War era pastures returned to woodlands, the cedars were crowded out and shaded, weakening them.   Hurricane Sandy knocked over several old cedars and we split the fast burning wood to use as fire starters, moth repellant, and incense.Red Oak - Hurricane Sandy damaged an enormous red oak on the southwest corner of the farm.   We cut it down to ensure a controlled fall and now have thousands of pounds of red oak to split.   I prefer white oak which is easier to split and faster to dry into firewood, but after 2 years of aging, red oak supports hot, long lasting fires.White Oak - when we cleared land for our orchard, we harvested over 1000 linear feet of white oak, which I cut into 4 foot logs for Shitake growing.   There are a few thousand pounds of logs too heavy for mushroom farming so I’ll process those with the new wood splitter.M...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs