I let my dog out the other night and saw my neighbour up his apple tree lopping branches. I don't know how old the tree was, but I've been here for 30 yrs and it was a good size back then with multiple trunks. I told him that now that he has experience he can trim mine too. He said he was taking it down to the ground. He has a fire pit.
I was out like shot and asked if he would trade the apple logs for burning wood. He was OK with that. I asked him to cut long lenghts up to 3 ft or so where ever possible.
Today, I had a firewood guy deliver a cord of mixed hard/soft woods cut and split. As they were unloading, I was throwing the apple over my fence. I got a lot of wood. This weekend coming he'll take out the 3 ft stump (hopefully in one piece). It should have some nice crotch and burl. Just looking at the endgrain it has nice color.
Now he's embarrassed because he has more firewood than he expected. I see future favors.
I'll slather some old oil paint on the end grain and resaw / stack / dry some in few weeks and leave some outside for a year or so in the wet grass for spalting.
I feel great.
Pete
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