Yesterday morning, my woodshed was empty. I'd spent all winter just burning what was in the shed, and by Friday night there was about two armloads of wood left, sitting in a little pile in the corner. It was a good thing my weekend was free because I was gonna be cutting green trees if I couldn't find some firewood.
Well my 17 YO son and I, he drove the tractor and stacked in the shed, I loaded the bucket and cut and split, we pulled all kinds of wood out of the snowpiles and from some old stacks and managed to put up three cords of mostly dry hardwood in about an eight-hour day. I also dropped three dead ash trees and bucked and piled the rounds.
My yard always looks like a tree service dumping ground. There's piles of wood everywhere, you name it, I got it. Several cords of pine slabs from 8-16' long, a bunch of random stacks of dry hardwood rounds that were cut and piled four years ago, a big pile of tree service leavings (mostly red pine, boxelder, sugar maple and black locust), a bunch of big rounds of maple, and three big stacks of mostly rotten sawlogs that are destined for firewood. I put four tanks of gas through my little 025, just crawling around various piles and doing a little 'precision cutting' to get what wasn't frozen solid. Split about 3/4 cord of what we stacked, with the Monster maul and my smaller True Temper splitting axe, and for a couple rounds (green pine is a b***h to split!) with the Estwing wedge and 6 lb sledgehammer.
I hadn't seriously cut any wood since last fall, probably only put an hour on my saws total since then, and lemme tell you, I couldn't get out of bed this morning. My eyes were open, my brain was thinking, and nothing else was working. There is such a thing as going past your point of comfort - and I did just that. I quit at dusk last night and I should have quit mid-afternoon, but heck, you get on a roll and you think 'just one more load' or 'just one more tank of gas' and before you know it, you are dragging. I was so tired I left my saw and my splitting mauls right on the woodpile and staggered back to the house. Was in bed by 9 pm, two hours early.
Well my 17 YO son and I, he drove the tractor and stacked in the shed, I loaded the bucket and cut and split, we pulled all kinds of wood out of the snowpiles and from some old stacks and managed to put up three cords of mostly dry hardwood in about an eight-hour day. I also dropped three dead ash trees and bucked and piled the rounds.
My yard always looks like a tree service dumping ground. There's piles of wood everywhere, you name it, I got it. Several cords of pine slabs from 8-16' long, a bunch of random stacks of dry hardwood rounds that were cut and piled four years ago, a big pile of tree service leavings (mostly red pine, boxelder, sugar maple and black locust), a bunch of big rounds of maple, and three big stacks of mostly rotten sawlogs that are destined for firewood. I put four tanks of gas through my little 025, just crawling around various piles and doing a little 'precision cutting' to get what wasn't frozen solid. Split about 3/4 cord of what we stacked, with the Monster maul and my smaller True Temper splitting axe, and for a couple rounds (green pine is a b***h to split!) with the Estwing wedge and 6 lb sledgehammer.
I hadn't seriously cut any wood since last fall, probably only put an hour on my saws total since then, and lemme tell you, I couldn't get out of bed this morning. My eyes were open, my brain was thinking, and nothing else was working. There is such a thing as going past your point of comfort - and I did just that. I quit at dusk last night and I should have quit mid-afternoon, but heck, you get on a roll and you think 'just one more load' or 'just one more tank of gas' and before you know it, you are dragging. I was so tired I left my saw and my splitting mauls right on the woodpile and staggered back to the house. Was in bed by 9 pm, two hours early.
