Maggie's Farm

I can identify with this. I live in the mountains on the left coast in a pine forest. I have 8 cords of wood split and stacked with 2 of them outside my back door for this winter. My nieghbor had someone cut about 25 of his trees down and offerred me the wood. All I have to do is cut and haul it and pile the branches and trimmings. I thought I was done for the season just before Thanksgiving since we got the first of our usual 4-8 feet of snow. But the Pineapple express has changed all that and the ground is bare so for the last 7 days I have been cutting, hauling with a wheelbarrow and cleaning up. I added about 2 cords and there is probably another 3 cords or more on the ground. I can't decide if I want it to snow so I can quit and relax or want it to keep raining so I can keep adding to my wood pile. You can never have too much wood when you heat exclusively with wood.

If by how long you mean length I try for 16" it is the standard. My stove will accomodate a piece 23" long so if I have a cut that long I don't trim it I just stack it seperately.
If you are asking how long to age cut wood, here where I live the summers are hot and dry any wood cut and split before spring is over will be dry.
I get pine for free so I burn pine. In other places I have lived I preferred oak, madrone, walnut, maple in that order. I can buy oak for $200 a cord and it is a good price but I would have to transport it 150 miles. The reason it is a good price is it takes about 4-5 times as much pine to get the same heat as you get from the oak. So while my pine is free it is not free of labor and I can afford the 200 a cord split aged oak. I am just too stuborn/cheap to pass up the free wood.