Got my exercise for the winter lined up...

[Dalmatian90]

September 13th -- Load #19

Less Pride...

More pay attention when backing up!

Load #20

 

[Dalmatian90]

September 20th -- Load #21

About a half load left but my back is acting up so I best rest it now...so close...

Let's figure some of those first loads were short, so let's declare this 21 total loads to finish up the 3 cords.

Stacks are 21-1/3' long and 54" high, wood is almost entirely is 16" and up. So 1 cord per row.

90 minutes to split and stack a load, so 31-1/2 man hours.

I'm confident this will get me throw the winter, plus they'll be another 1/2 cord or so on the deck before I light the fire.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Last weekend got that little hole filled:

Plenty to still work on, but no real pressure to get it done now:

Except for some "cookwood" that I use between the kindling and larger logs to help get things going faster. One more load this size should be enough for the winter. After that load it'll all be for 2016/2017.

 

[Dalmatian90]

So I had the uglies.

And a bunch I hadn't yet got to hand splitting...among other things this winter was so mild it was hard to work on the pile! I would have just made a muddy mess -- even the few snows we had the driveway was never frozen solid :/ One of the mildest winters on record, last one to match it was back in the 1930s.

And...last week...I......missed out a 4 year old, 100 cords through it Super Split for $1300 that was 10 minutes from my house...saw the ad at 4:30 the day after he posted it, responded to the ad with basically shut-up-and-take-my-money and rushed to the bank to get the cash just in case a miracle happened.

So for $97.84 I picked up a rental splitter from Thompson (three towns away from me)...used to be you got a day free if the rental place was closed on Sundays, but these folks have a self-storage yard so I have a code and have to drop it back off Sunday morning.

Six seconds out, six seconds back so I think that means a 12 second cycle time. 28 tons, I'd hate to see wood that needs a 35 ton!

Got home about 9am, decided at 4:30 I was getting tired enough I'd hurt myself if I kept going. If I can move in the AM, I'll go out at 7am and split for an hour which should pretty much finish up the rest of what is ready to split before I have to head back to the rental place.

Figured leaning over was for the birds, so I just split the big uglies enough that I could lift them up once the splitter was horizontal again. Much easier on the back than splitting while leaning over.

 

[Dalmatian90]

I've been hobbling around with a torn Lateral Collateral Ligament since September...and in between tore my meniscus. In other words I've been pretty miserable. (Today is probably the first day since October I was walking around without any pain, granted I need to wrap up my knee for extra support to be pain free.)

Back around Christmas was worried about making it through this season so I called my wood guy to see about getting a cord of cut and split...and while we were talking he said he could get me a tri-axle for $675. SOLD!

I had figured worse case I could mix in green and seasoned to finish the year, but it has now been such an exceptionally mild January I have plenty of wood for this year and maybe even till December 1st next year.

So this is my 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 wood:

 

[Dalmatian90]

So that knee?

Took until (late) August to heal enough that I could finally start working on this pile. I'm still having to be careful, and my stamina is shot not being that physically active for a year until mid-July when I was finally healed enough I could go to the ocean and get in the salt water and help work the knee without as much weight on it.

I wanted to have half that pile already cut and split this summer.

Last three weekends I've put a tankful through my 372XP....took 2-1/2 hours on 8/27, 1-1/2 hours on 9/2, and just a bit more than an hour on 9/9.

This was before this past weekend's work...my log deck was already running out of room to work:

I also have a major rebuild of my house coming up in a few weeks (new roof -- rafters and all, stripping the siding and sheathing, repairing studs and sills as needed, new siding, gutting the bathroom and re-doing that) and preparing for the contractors is competing for my time and how long I can work without aggravating the knee too much.

No way my stamina was going to come up quick enough for my to catch up with my splitting ax and get the wood split and out of my way so I can keep cutting the logs.

Came as close to having a heart attack as I'd like to come last time I rented a splitter and did as much as I could before it was due back, and at $100 a day that would start to add up after several or more rentals this fall...

So after I put the saw down, went for a drive kicking tires at various local shops and ended up at the same place I bought my snow blower and tractor and he once again had something I liked for the budget I had.

Tonight got home from work and got some time in...it's in the low 70s and low humidity, so I didn't realize how much of a sweat I worked up till I was done and went to take off my cap and the entire bill was soaked!

Couldn't go too fast, 25 minutes of splitting time and 15 minutes of stacking time. Between a tape measure and eye-ball I figure that was a 3' x 4' x 1.3' (16") pile if you evened it up...so 15.2 c.f. or 1/8th of a cord. Happily, no Advil and no knee pain as I'm typing this!