Best time to fell trees

[Stubborn1VT]

Soft maple is about half of what I use for firewood to heat our little house. It doesn't last as well as hard maple or ironwood, but it's what I prefer to start a fire with.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Red maples are the work horses of the forest in these modern times. No more chesnut, EAB killing all the ashes, spruce and fir decline, Beech bark scale disease and now the beech leaf disease, hemlock adelgid, dutch elm, that white pine beetle...black cherries are starting to get a little funky looking around here. But the red maple...will grow almost anywhere, grows fast, seems like it has no diseases that affect it, etc.

I burn a lot of red maple. Splits nicely. Burns hot. But yes, not as many BTU's compared to sugar maple or oak.

I also tap the big red maples and they produce a lovely maple syrup.

25 years ago when I first bought my place, I used to consider them kind of a useless tree too. I've come to respect them for all they provide.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Natty -

Maybe next hunting season .... ditch the camo & deer scent - and fire up your chainsaw! Isn't it amazing how the older big boys show up after the seasons are over? I swear they go underground sometimes, and no matter how hard we hunt them - can't find 'em.

Yes Bows....I think you're onto something. Not that I care too much from a moral or ethical standpoint, but I have often wondered IF a game warden was to happen upon my newly felled trees and my tree stand, would that technically be a game violation? I can do food plots in MA, but no baiting. I wonder where this would fall?