Black Walnut and Box-Elder
Cutting, gathering, and splitting wood are
nearly daily chores without the aid of the golf cart. Most of the
trees in our young forest are Black Walnut and Box-Elder, which
together seem to make a nearly perfect firewood.
The Black Walnut weighs about twice as much as the Box-Elder, and the
weight difference equates to a slower burning wood which keeps us going
all through the night. The Box-Elder, on the other hand, is full
of air and ignites quickly, perfect for a nice hot morning fire to take
the chill off the house.
Unfortunately, the Box-Elder also rots much faster. We're still
working on cleaning up trees chopped down by the power company three
years ago, but the three year old Box-Elders are now too punky to split
and burn --- the maul sinks right into the decaying wood and we have a
devil of a time getting it back out. The three year old walnuts,
on the other hand, are still crisp and hard. I can't quite
describe the satisfaction of whipping your maul through a hard walnut,
hearing the deep thud echo against the hills as the two log halves fly
off in each direction.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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