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140 pounds Thursday, June 26 2014
I went on a quick foray into the forest and sawed up part of a very old piece of oak near the north end of the Gullies Trail. Maybe ten or more years ago, I'd had to cut a chunk out of this log to establish the trail itself. As an indication of the rot-resistance of the wood (and this suggests it might be "fossil" American Chestnut), the wood hadn't appreciably decayed at all in that time. I cut five pieces of it, loaded it onto my backpack frame, and it was so heavy that I was barely able to get to my feet with the pack strapped to my back. At the woodshed, I weighed the load as best I could and it proved to be over 140 pounds. At 77% of my own weight, that is probably a record.
At this point, the main space of the woodshed is completely full of firewood (an amount of approximately 3 cords), though I've begun a fourth tranche of wood that is partially-exposed to rainfall. I'd had to resort to a fourth tranche back in 2011 after filling the woodshed nearly completely with Silver Maple salvaged from Ray and Nancy's place and then getting access to a three-tree blowdown in Bearsville. The wood this year, though, has much better heat-density than Silver Maple, so I have a completely unprecedented store of BTUs already and and the heating season is still over three months away.
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