Well... valuable as heating fuel that is.
Pretty nice day... a bit cold but no wind and a lot of sun.
Predictions are for more snow tonight so the boy and I figured we better get that walnut split that we took down last weekend. That particular area of the yard gets a lot of sun, and is sheltered from the north wind so most of the snow had melted, but it was cold enough to keep the ground frozen... almost perfect working conditions.
Man, most of that walnut had perfect straight grain and we've had a couple real cold nights so it was frozen... that stuff was just poppin' open. Seemed like grabbin' the splittin' axe was the thing to do. I was figuring the boy could work the stuff he could lift on the splitter and I'd whittle away at the bigger stuff using the axe and we'd knock it out in no time. It didn't quite work out that fast because the boy showed some interest in the axe... he got his first lesson. I ended up cutting a couple rounds in half (about 8-inches long) for him. I really screwed up big time; I was concentrating on helping him with the axe and didn't have the camera handy when he finally popped one. Man-o-man, I wish I could have caught the look on his face for eternity... but I'll never forget it.
Once we got back to serious work it went pretty fast... and ended up with a nice load of firewood.
Pretty nice day... a bit cold but no wind and a lot of sun.
Predictions are for more snow tonight so the boy and I figured we better get that walnut split that we took down last weekend. That particular area of the yard gets a lot of sun, and is sheltered from the north wind so most of the snow had melted, but it was cold enough to keep the ground frozen... almost perfect working conditions.
Man, most of that walnut had perfect straight grain and we've had a couple real cold nights so it was frozen... that stuff was just poppin' open. Seemed like grabbin' the splittin' axe was the thing to do. I was figuring the boy could work the stuff he could lift on the splitter and I'd whittle away at the bigger stuff using the axe and we'd knock it out in no time. It didn't quite work out that fast because the boy showed some interest in the axe... he got his first lesson. I ended up cutting a couple rounds in half (about 8-inches long) for him. I really screwed up big time; I was concentrating on helping him with the axe and didn't have the camera handy when he finally popped one. Man-o-man, I wish I could have caught the look on his face for eternity... but I'll never forget it.
Once we got back to serious work it went pretty fast... and ended up with a nice load of firewood.