Hey Guys n Gals,

Last summer I bought a new place with 2 acres of oaks and of course poison oak. I quickly decided, after having it out with the propane company, that I was going to heat the house with firewood. I'm in Nor Cal and winters are usually in the 50's during the day and the 30's at night.

First things first, I had a couple of cords of dry oak delivered to kick things off and ensure I had something to burn this winter. But I soon bought a new Stihl chainsaw to cut up some oak that had fallen and is partially rotten, as well as trim and harvest wood going forward. Holy smokes, that is a nice saw! I've always used friends' saws of varying age and disrepair. I was impressed enough to buy a pole saw and then a leaf blower. All are great and start easily.

I have about 75 oaks from what I was able to count and the goal is long term sustained harvesting of oak to last me 30-40 years.

Smokie is happy to watch me stack wood, and Bandit is happy to watch Smokie watch me...




The view is good from the top of the backyard. Only 30 mins to work!




The pole saw extends to 11 feet!




My brother hooked me up with this hand forged Husqy axe.




My new homies.




Other new homies in front of my little rental unit.

 

Stihl is a good choice. I'm on my 2nd (I wrecked the first one -- not the saw's fault). They make nice saws.

You didn't mention splitting the wood. I split with a maul, but I'm retired and have the time. I probably use about the same amount of wood that you're talking about.

Interesting temp range. I STOP burning and let the propane take over when the daytime temps get into the 30's. But, we keep our place at 62 degrees.

hj

 

Luckily I'm going over on Sat to pick up and store my friend's hydraulic splitter.

Yeah, it'd be nice to turn on the furnace when it's 48* inside on weekend mornings. But, the propane company welcomed me to the neighborhood by disconnecting the tank without notifying me, leaving me with an ice cold 5:00am shower. Not the way to get on my good side! They then shook me down for a re-connection fee plus they tried to get me to pay for the propane they had previously sold the prior homeowner that was still in the tank. Homey don't play that. I told them to come get their F'n take off my property- and they did. Next day I installed an electric water heater and ordered the couple cords of wood.