Curiosity, or ?

[DanG]

My son-in-law went to the county landfill with a load of trash, last week, and came back with 3 nice pine logs that had been dumped there. We sawed them up today, and got enough to build him a new chicken house.

I noticed, when I was off-bearing, that the boards in the center of the logs were noticably lighter and dryer than the outer boards. I haven't noticed this before, in other logs. Could it be because the tree was struck by lightning? I saw no evidence of a lightning strike, otherwise, and the logs were fresh, with no sign of bugs or disease. Anybody got any ideas?

[Tom]

I run into that all the time DanG.  That is the heartwood of the tree that is so light and I think it is because it is sealed and not carrying as much sap/water as the sapwood.  It is especially noticeable in Loblolly and Pond Pine in these faster growing trees.

[Minnesota_boy]

Here in the northern part of the US, our red pine is the same.  The heartwood may only weigh half as much as the sapwood.  Quite a surprise the first time you run into it.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  If you look the growth rings are wider.  Here we get the first 10 years with about 1/2 inch between growth rings then it it starts tighting up and the boards get heavier.  Then when they get really old and full of pitch they get real heavy.
  I think that I would go to the dump more offten.
ARKANSAWYER

[Fla._Deadheader]

DanG, check yer PM

[DanG]

Well, I guess I just never noticed it before. Come to think of it, I've had someone else doing the offbearing, on most of the pine I've cut. This time, I was letting the S-I-L get the feel of the mill to cut his own logs, and I kept the peas for myself. ;D

BTW, he's hooked, now. ;D

[Haytrader]

That's good that yer S I L has been "dusted", but did you check ur PM?
 ;D

[DanG]

Yup, I had done already checked PM this AM, but it was just Harold giving me some crap about being stoopid.
I've got some real hopes in this p'ticklar Son-in-law. He's one of them guys that can do bunches of different things, and he DonT back off from hard work, at all. I'm hoping to rope him in to being a partner, of sorts, if I get this operation going like I expect to. ;D  He has a little part-time landscaping business, and home-school's his 2 kids. The 2 year old(turned 2 on Christmas eve) knows the alphabet and counts. He also raises goats, cows, and chickens, and puts in a monster garden. He's a keeper, for sure.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  I would not hold the goats aginst him. :D  Now if you can keep your girl from running him off.  I wished my oldest could drag one home like that.
ARKANSAWYER

[Don P]

We call where your logs came from "The Country K-Mart"
Type in page 6 on the bottom of the pdf reader when it loads and you'll go to a table in chapter 3 of the Wood Handbook that shows average moisture content of green wood, heartwood vs. sapwood. For Loblolly they show 33% vs 110%.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/ch03.pdf

There's worse things than goats... ???
I'm thinkin... :
I'll have to get back to you. ;D

[ADfields]

Skunks ??? Snakes ??? :-/