The seventy year old family farm in Wisconsin has a large wood lot and is surrounded by forest. I played and logged there as a young man. Shortly after I transferred to the West Coast thirty five years ago, I bought a parcel of forest land in Washington State in the southeast foot hills of Mount Adams at a price that made me feel like a thief. The Washington parcel was last logged back when they used spring boards, axes, and two-man cross cut saws. The land first appeared to be a million square acres since it was so thick you could neither walk nor see through it. There was a mixture of firs, pines, vine maple, hazelnut, elderberry, wild rose, strawberry, and in the spring beautiful and delicate trillium. My biggest fear was that a brush fire would wipe out the entire stand. Consequently over the years, I have used and possess every type of machete, pruning shears, axe, hand saw, chain saw, and portable band mill to thin and trim the trees so that it looks like a park today and I can walk the perimeter in less than an hour. Nowhere near a million acres! I have worked in those woods in all seasons including winter with snowshoes and toboggan while staying in a tent.

The reason for the long preamble is to state my experience with obtaining dry dead wood for use in fire making in any season or for pruning . Dry dead wood off the ground still attached to the truck of a tree is as hard as a rock and brittle. I removed these branches up to six inches in diameter and twenty feed in the air to get them out of reach of a surface fire. They dull all axes and saws. There are better tools to harvest them. I used the blunt end of axes, sledge hammers, triple walled steel pipes, or solid metal rods to snap them off flush with the trunk. I even have used rocks and heavy green branches to snap them off. Not only do these snap off easier with less effort but many times they shatter into split pieces. The time, effort, and energy expended to harvest these branches is greatly reduced. However like any activity involving the expenditure of heavy force, care must be taken to prevent accidents from flying projectiles.

I would never subject myself or my survival tools, i.e. knives, folding pruning saw, etc. to cutting dry dead wood. I reserve that equipment for cutting green wood. You can even snap off dead branches by hand by grabbing the end of an overhead branch with gloved hand and walking back toward the trunk. However, it can be quite dangerous without a hard hat with a safety eye screen. I will race any forum member with any axe or saw, powered or not, with my methods and I guarantee that I will have more wood in less time and effort. And, I will not have to spend the time sharpen the dulled edge of a tool afterward.