Firewooding for Charity! (Lots of Pics)

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Steve NW WI

Unwanted Riff Raff.
Joined
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A bunch of the WI/MN Arboristsite guys got together this morning to help cut some wood for Interfaith Caregivers, a local charity who's main focus is on helping the elderly live out their lives in their homes, but has "branched" out into supplying firewood as part of their work.

I can't remember who donated the logs, hopefully the nice guy from Interfaith will jump on here and explain the background better, he was on here yesterday reading about us nutcases planning to come up.

Anyway, this has been one of Grandpatractor and HeavyFuel's projects for a few years, and this year WetGunPowder, Woodyman, Thorcw, and grandpatractor and HeavyFuel's sons, as well as Bob from the local repair shop, Compete Automotive in Dresser (not yet a member here that I know of) and myself made the trip up to Danbury, WI for a morning of cutting. There were also about as many locals that may or may not be members here (if you are, chime in), up there.

When we got there, the local guys had a start, and prior work had taken the 3 10 cord loads down to about 25. With 18 guys, and an estimated 40 or so chainsaws, plus Grandpatractor's JD skidloader with grapple, we made molehills out of mountains in good time. JD and Heavy Fuel took turns on the skid, moving logs from the pile to about a half dozen cutting locations, where chips flew in all directions. A little less than 4 hours later, 26 cords were blocked up, and a start on splitting. I understand that some "Community Service" help will be doing a LOT of splitting up there in the near future, so if you dislike swinging a maul, stay out of trouble in Burnett Co, WI!

Here is a link to the Polk county chapter of Interfaith, a quick search didn't find a site for Burnett: Interfaith Caregivers Props also to the Log Cabin Store in Danbury WI for lunch as well. If you're ever up that way, make sure to stop in. Good food and the store has everything from trinkets for the Missus to guns! Log Cabin Store and Eatery. I'll also recommend the breakfast at the Main Street Cafe in Siren, WI where most of us met up for a cheap, big breakfast.

We'll get started on the pics, JD and Woody have more to share as well. I'll try to caption them as best as possible, but I'm bad at matching faces and names.

Here's the setup, first 10 cords in the foreground, the other pile of logs kind of hidden behind the snow covered mound of firewood, 15+ cords back there:

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The driveway was icy at first, but the steel tracks on the loader fixed that for us:

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Just getting going good, note the ice problem is going away:

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Grandpatractor spent a bunch of quality time on the vise, keeping chains sharp for several guys:

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Here's some of the local guys working on the back pile:

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Union Break!

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Here's why, the fellow from Interfaith's wife was up real early this morning baking some goodies for us:

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Getting back at it, notice that the front semi load is gone already, this was maybe an hour and a half or so of cutting!

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Stay tuned, back with more in a bit!
 
Alright here goes more. I think that's Jon's son with the Stihl, it's an 036 with a long bar and skip chain, I got to run it a bit and it did a great job.

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Some of our northern brethren, notice the younguns swinging mauls. Bet ya they all sleep well tonight. The northern crowd was very much Jonsered oriented, and those of us from down south were big on Dolmar, with some Huskies as well. I'm happy to report they all played well together!

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Bunch of busy beavers!

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JD, aka Grandpatractor feeding the chainsaw guys:

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Our friendly neighborhood purveyor of fine Dolmar and Jonsered products, WetGunPowder, besides hauling myself and Bob up there, donated 4 gallons of bar oil to use, and (GASP) even got his shiny new chaps a little dirty. Here he is replacing some of the fluids he lost actually working for once :D

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Here's a group shot, I hope I didn't cut anyone off on the left side, had it on a timer and thought everyone was in it. Grandpatractor and Woodyman should have similar pics if I did miss some guys.

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Like they say, many hands makes light work, here's what we left to be split, 3 hours and 40 minutes time difference from my first shot to the last:

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If anyone wants a higher res printer quality shot, as well as a couple other pics, check the album out at: Cutting pics album

If you're tempted to hit the rep button, I ain't stopping ya, but spread some love to the other guys as well!
 
That looks like a lot of fun for a good cause, wish i could have been there to help. Great pics also.
 
Wow Lots of fun. Is that firewood for next year?

Yep, as I understand it, it will be delivered this spring/summer for next winter's use. The guy from Interfaith started doing this a few years back, with himself and his 89 year old father doing all the work (not quite on this scale). They were thrilled to have all this help today!
 
Great job with the pic's Steve! Thanks for taking them and sharing with everyone;) This is about half tha amount of wood that Interfaith Caregivers donated in the past year and as the need arises I'm sure they will need even more for the upcoming season. We all had a great time cutting and I'm sure everyone is only a phone call away from doing this again! If anyone in the midwest feels left out after today fun we will be cutting a truckload of wood at GPT's GTG next weekend and donating it to this great charity.
 
Yep, as I understand it, it will be delivered this spring/summer for next winter's use. The guy from Interfaith started doing this a few years back, with himself and his 89 year old father doing all the work (not quite on this scale). They were thrilled to have all this help today!

Good on ya'. Good effort for a good cause. The cookies looked good, too.
 
Great job and a great idea. I'd love to get something like this started at my church. The laws probably vary from state to state, but do you know if the logs are donated under some sort of charity statute or do you have to purchase the logs?
 
Great job and a great idea. I'd love to get something like this started at my church. The laws probably vary from state to state, but do you know if the logs are donated under some sort of charity statute or do you have to purchase the logs?
As I understand, one of the 3 loads was donated, and the other two were purchased with money donated to Interfaith. They are a registered charitable organization. Your church should be a good source to hook you up with a similar outfit locally, or give you an idea how to set up one of your own.
 
Great job and a great idea. I'd love to get something like this started at my church. The laws probably vary from state to state, but do you know if the logs are donated under some sort of charity statute or do you have to purchase the logs?

The large load of logs was purchased with funds donated to the Interfaith Group. Denny from Interfaith said in the past they would just "woodbugga" wood but as the need grew they started buying logs. The smaller 10 cord pile was purchased by a family in the MSP area who heard about the group and wanted to help. Along with church donationns the local electric cooperative is a major financial contributor also.
 
You'll get your chance next weekend!:laugh:

Grandpatractor, as customary at his GTGs will be sending a dump truck load of firewood we will cut and split up to them as well.

Also, if you need another reason to come to the GTG, here's what's getting raffled off, with the proceeds going to Interfaith as well:

I got the OK to post this.

We will giving away a brand new 5100 with heated handles at the GTG.
For a $20 donation, your name will entered in a drawing for a chance to win the saw. Proceeds will be given to Interfaith Caregivers along with the load of wood that we will be cutting. So if you are interested you will want to bring a 20 dollar bill along. Wetgunpowder is supplying the saw!!!:clap::clap::clap:
Here is a pic of the saw.

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that's really cool but I have to sat be careful giving dem ol' coots firewood as dey might just burn thier freaking house down. It happened to me. I filled up the truck to take to old man Schaffer and when I was pulling up to his place I saw smoke billowing out of the roof. I said to myself " looks like old man Scaffer has enough firewood" he had spilled kero all over inside to light the fire.
Anyway, its the thought that counts.
 
Great job, guys. Can't wait to help out next weekend. Feel kinda guilty for the 2 cords I got split for myself today.

BTW, how is it WGP wasn't wearing a Dolmar hat? And those are some very BRIGHT orange chaps! :rock:
 
Great job, guys. Can't wait to help out next weekend. Feel kinda guilty for the 2 cords I got split for myself today.

BTW, how is it WGP wasn't wearing a Dolmar hat? And those are some very BRIGHT orange chaps! :rock:

Apparently, he was promoting OREGON today - I had the Dolmar advertising covered for him. I remember when my chaps were that color, made me feel like a :newbie: until I got some dirt, oil and sawdust on em!

See ya next weekend!
 
Great job, guys. Can't wait to help out next weekend. Feel kinda guilty for the 2 cords I got split for myself today.

BTW, how is it WGP wasn't wearing a Dolmar hat? And those are some very BRIGHT orange chaps! :rock:

Got to wear out the OREGON hats myself. TOO many DOLMAR fanatics gettin' all them GOOD hats! As for the new chaps-well I'm new to all this PPE stuff and there was not enough thawed ground for me to have any mud to fall down in!:laugh:
 

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