Pile of Alder

[Joe Pelonio]

I just got back from my parents place, with the hood canal bridge closed it was over 4 hours each way.

My parents heat their home mostly with a woodstove, and it takes 8-10 cords a year. This year the only decent deal they could get was on Alder. Apparently not many people are harvesting for firewood any more in their area on the Olympic Peninsula. They used to get cedar and fir.

This pile will be split, stacked and drying in a couple of months. My step Dad will saw them to length then he sits at the hydraulic splitter and just works a few hours a day until they are done.

http://forums.bonsaisite.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=21724

[Butch Spears]

All I can say is "What beautiful Country" Where is it located? I may want to move there. a nice pile of Alder also.

[Brad Wood]

Joe is in Northern WA (well, more central I suppose, ... but more northern than me :) ), so I'm guessing his folks are up there somewhere as well.

That is some nice alder. I've got three acres of mostly alder, but it isn't worth milling. It does make decent firewood though

[Butch Spears]

Washington is one state that I have never been. Every pic that I see looks like this ( except winter time) How do people make a living there? I need to browse the net and see what life is like up there.

[Joe Pelonio]

They are between Sequim and Port Angeles, WA, on a road that runs from 101 near the Puget Sound to the Olympic Mountains, and are at about 800 feet. From above them a mile or so there are multi-million dollar homes with views across the sound to Victoria, BC. They have 5 acres and a small older home with a shop building to die for.

In port angeles there are still a couple of big expensive yacht builders, and a paper mill, but Sequim is a popular retirement area because it's in the rain shadow of the mountains and gets only 10" of rain (we get 40").

[Brad Wood]

Washington is one state that I have never been. Every pic that I see looks like this ( except winter time) How do people make a living there? I need to browse the net and see what life is like up there.

life is good up here. From the Cascade mountain range West to the coast gets a lot of rain (unless you live in an anomaly like Joe's folks). Average rain for the Portland/Vancouver area is about 40'ish. I live in the Cascade foothills and we get about double that of the Portland/Vancouver area (we are 40 minutes Northeast of Portland/Vancouver)

East of the Cascades is more farmland plains and doesn't get near the rainfall the West side of the two states get.
If compelled, you can literally surf in the morning at the coast, get in your car and drive about three hours and ski on Mt Hood in the afteroon.

This picture is Moulton Falls, which is a county park. I live less than a mile from here.

[Carlos Alden]

Washington State has a wide variety of climates. As Brad indicated, the Cascades suck all the moisture from the weather systems and Eastward is actually high desert. As the weather moves toward Idaho it hits on the rising Columbia plateau going to the foothills of the Rockies where I live, Spokane, and begins accumulating and dropping more moisture.

Spokane is great because we have pretty much a nice mix of seasons (except for the last couple of years where we've seen 5-month winters and short springs and autumns). The rain pretty much stops the end of June, and July, August, September, and most of October are warm and dry, with a week or two of high-90 or low-100 degree temps.

But it's a very, very different climate than Puget Sound. Driving 30 minutes in any direction yields startlingly different geographies and climates: Go north and I'm into forested valleys. South I'm into rolling lentil and wheat farms, The Palouse. East I'm into Idaho and low mountain ranges. Drive West and I am into the high desert scablands, so called because of the great Missoula Ice Dam floods from the last ice age, when HUGE amounts of water let loose from melting Montana ice dams and roared to the Pacific Ocean in a couple of days' time. The land has been scoured and looks like it, leaving ragged bones of basalt sticking out all over the place. The center of the state is heavily irrigated for farming and is similar to California's Central Valley. Terrific Mexican food.

It's a great place to live if you like being outdoors.

Carlos

[Craig D Peltier]

Joe is in Northern WA (well, more central I suppose, ... but more northern than me :) ), so I'm guessing his folks are up there somewhere as well.

That is some nice alder. I've got three acres of mostly alder, but it isn't worth milling. It does make decent firewood though

Curious why your Alder isnt worth milling. Is it punky or swampy? I know the mills up here sell it for 1.70 bd foot for #1 grade and the stores around $4. I think it looks nice , like a sister of cherry. I know its used some time in place of and not noticed.

[Brad Wood]

Curious why your Alder isnt worth milling. Is it punky or swampy? I know the mills up here sell it for 1.70 bd foot for #1 grade and the stores around $4. I think it looks nice , like a sister of cherry. I know its used some time in place of and not noticed.

Most of it isn't big enough yet... but what I have isn't growing real straight either... very crooked. It would be hard to yield much length out of any of the boards.

I just purchased 176 board feet of alder from a private mill in the Gorge. I paid $2 for it, and it is all 8/4 and each stick is just over 8'.
No way the alder on my property would yield that much without cutting down the entire acreage :)

[Craig D Peltier]

Most of it isn't big enough yet... but what I have isn't growing real straight either... very crooked. It would be hard to yield much length out of any of the boards.

I just purchased 176 board feet of alder from a private mill in the Gorge. I paid $2 for it, and it is all 8/4 and each stick is just over 8'.
No way the alder on my property would yield that much without cutting down the entire acreage :)
Here I can get #1 commons for 1.70 plus tax but have to buy alot , say 400 bd feet or more. Thats a good price you got.

[Joe Pelonio]

There is high grade alder coming out of this area. My daughter's father-in-law works for a company with mills in Chehalis, Mt. Vernon and Port Angeles that sells wholesale to the furniture industry. I have no idea what they get for it, but they ship to Asia and Europe.

[Brad Wood]

Here I can get #1 commons for 1.70 plus tax but have to buy alot , say 400 bd feet or more. Thats a good price you got.

My local source charges $1.75 bd/ft for 4/4 and .99 bd/ft for the more junky alder that he calls "red alder", I think its just the heartwood. It isn't very stable.

I'm not completely versed on grades (like #1 common). The 8/4 he sold me for $2.00 bd/ft is all very clean with some knots, but solid and stable. I would consider it "high grade" as Joe puts it

[Joe Pelonio]

Look at the website, they have so many grades I'd have no clue how to sort our what to order. Maybe you furniture-makers are familiar with them?

Click alder on the left and the grades drop down in white lettering.

http://www.cascadehardwood.com/mainfrm.htm

[Brad Wood]

good grief. I just stay with "it looks good" :)

[Greg Crawford]

I've heard that knotty alder is the newest fad in kitchen cabinets. Kind of like the old avocado green and harvest gold appliances. That alder might be going up in value for a couple of years. Of course, folks have to have the money to spend on cabinets first.