I recently had a huge tree come down in my back yard, we had always assumed it was a red maple but after cutting up the wood, I have my doubts.
The leaves are three pointed jagged edged 2" wide or so. The bark is mostly smooth, it peels off easily, leaving a sticky smooth under layer.
The tree was plated in the late 60's by me as a kid. The trunk measured 59x48" and stood about 8ft tall before branching out into 8 huge limbs. It towered over the house by double the height and reached 70ft across the yard.
We had high winds and thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago and while sitting on the side porch watching the rain, I heard a pop and a dull thud. I thought nothing of it. When the rain stopped I looked out a back window and all but on limb of the tree was gone or down. Of the 8 huge limbs only one remained, four were gone completely, along with part of the trunk down to the ground. The rest were on the ground, straddling my boat, car trailer, and shed with one end sticking up over the roof of the house. Each of those limbs were 24" or more in diameter. The base of the one I finally finished cutting up was too big to fit inside a 55 gallon burn barrel.
The back yard looks like a bomb went off, saw dust is six inches deep and there are massive rounds of wood everywhere cut in 12" lengths. Only two 8ft straight pieces are not cut up, which I intend to mill into something.
What makes me question what this wood is has been the amount of sticky sap that's literally dripping from every cut. After 7 hours of cutting today, my pants were soaked in sticky clear sap. Making a cut into a large chunk of wood the saw is throwing out as much sap as its throwing chips. The sap is attracting ants and bees.
This is one of the larger leaves, its about 2.5" wide.
Something I'm seeing is that the tree lacks growth rings, or at least enough to account for the number of years it stood there. I did most of its growing in the 90's and later, before that it was no more than may maybe 15-18" in diameter at best but in the late 90's it went wild.
Something I found odd what that this year it didn't put on any seeds, which are double ended propellers, shaped the same as those on a Norway maple. This year is bloomed, put on leaves and never any seeds. Normally it would have put on thousands of seeds and covered the yard early on but this year it skipped seeds completely.
The wood is white when first cut, then after a few hours it turns orange/brown, sort of oxidizing like a fresh cut apple.
I tried splitting a few rounds of it but it gets stuck on the wedge. When I tried to split few pieces by hand with a maul, the wood turns bright red. Every impact into the cut end of the wood turns red, as does bark cut off with a side axe or hatchet. Sawing the wood does not turn it red. Impact does. The bark peels off like cardboard and is smooth, with the texture similar to white birch.
I've cut my share of wood and cleared several lots and properties over the years but have never seen a tree bleed sap like this or turn red when you swing an axe at it.
The leaves are three pointed jagged edged 2" wide or so. The bark is mostly smooth, it peels off easily, leaving a sticky smooth under layer.
The tree was plated in the late 60's by me as a kid. The trunk measured 59x48" and stood about 8ft tall before branching out into 8 huge limbs. It towered over the house by double the height and reached 70ft across the yard.
We had high winds and thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago and while sitting on the side porch watching the rain, I heard a pop and a dull thud. I thought nothing of it. When the rain stopped I looked out a back window and all but on limb of the tree was gone or down. Of the 8 huge limbs only one remained, four were gone completely, along with part of the trunk down to the ground. The rest were on the ground, straddling my boat, car trailer, and shed with one end sticking up over the roof of the house. Each of those limbs were 24" or more in diameter. The base of the one I finally finished cutting up was too big to fit inside a 55 gallon burn barrel.
The back yard looks like a bomb went off, saw dust is six inches deep and there are massive rounds of wood everywhere cut in 12" lengths. Only two 8ft straight pieces are not cut up, which I intend to mill into something.
What makes me question what this wood is has been the amount of sticky sap that's literally dripping from every cut. After 7 hours of cutting today, my pants were soaked in sticky clear sap. Making a cut into a large chunk of wood the saw is throwing out as much sap as its throwing chips. The sap is attracting ants and bees.
This is one of the larger leaves, its about 2.5" wide.
Something I'm seeing is that the tree lacks growth rings, or at least enough to account for the number of years it stood there. I did most of its growing in the 90's and later, before that it was no more than may maybe 15-18" in diameter at best but in the late 90's it went wild.
Something I found odd what that this year it didn't put on any seeds, which are double ended propellers, shaped the same as those on a Norway maple. This year is bloomed, put on leaves and never any seeds. Normally it would have put on thousands of seeds and covered the yard early on but this year it skipped seeds completely.
The wood is white when first cut, then after a few hours it turns orange/brown, sort of oxidizing like a fresh cut apple.
I tried splitting a few rounds of it but it gets stuck on the wedge. When I tried to split few pieces by hand with a maul, the wood turns bright red. Every impact into the cut end of the wood turns red, as does bark cut off with a side axe or hatchet. Sawing the wood does not turn it red. Impact does. The bark peels off like cardboard and is smooth, with the texture similar to white birch.
I've cut my share of wood and cleared several lots and properties over the years but have never seen a tree bleed sap like this or turn red when you swing an axe at it.