Friday, January 06, 2023

Now you see 'em, now you don't

Back in late 2021, when the landscape contractor and his crew took down the dead and dying birches in the north forty, I asked them to cut the trunks and large branches into thirty-three centimeter lengths so I could use them as firewood. They did, and stacked them under the tall Himalayan cedar. I thought I'd be able to split them last year, but I couldn't. There they've sat since then. Until now.

Before, from up on the deck. I had already moved about ten logs to help stabilize the bigger log pile. Taken with the Canon 6D.

The crew spent a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon manually splitting the trunks into pieces that I can fit into the wood stove. They also moved them over to the log pile under the deck. So cool. I burned a bunch of the wood yesterday and it burns well.

After, at ground level. I'm still working on cutting up the smaller branches for kindling. Taken with the Pixel 6.

I wonder if my failure to split the logs myself was partly because they needed to dry out a little more. Could be, but most likely it was because I'm not strong enough and my axe isn't hefty enough. I'm a lumberjack no more. I can still split the already split logs into smaller pieces, as long as there are no knots to cut through.

5 comments:

  1. You may be a lumberjack no more but you're still OK.

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  2. Yup, still ok :)
    Seriously, though, log splitting is a tough business. My husband uses a log splitter contraption and it works much more easily.

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  3. So you gave the Pixel its first outing today? ;)

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  4. mitch, phew!

    judy, I couldn't justify buying one, and I could not find any for rent in our area.

    evelyn, yes! I'm so happy to be able to burn them, and glad that they're out from under that tree.

    elgee, yes. I waited until I had a protected cover for it.

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