Firewood

A neighbors maple tree was dying and was taken down by the City about a month ago. I grabbed several of the larger pieces and wheeled them into my sideyard.

(Click on any picture for larger image.)

Before

Today I pulled out my safety gear, borrowed Art's Stihl 038 (a beast of a chainsaw), set up my sawbuck on the sidewalk and got to work.

After

After I cut everything to length with the chainsaw, the wood stove can only take 15" long pieces, it was time for lunch.

In order to prevent creosote build-up in the chimney, the wood needs to be split, stacked and dried for about a year before it can be burned. 

The larger pieces were still "wet" and took wedges to split.

Most of the smaller logs split with a stroke or two of the 8lb splitting maul.

My (empty) storage area.  Last year I had space in the yard to build a beehive woodpile. Now this is the only place I have to store the wood.

 

I started at 10am, finished at 8pm. My back is a little sore and I picked up a couple of blisters.  I'm self medicating with a cocktail -- gin, lemon, club soda, and lavender (from my garden) simple syrup.

The world is a messed up place--this Wendell Berry piece gives you some idea where I'm coming from.  In trying to make some sense of it all, I get caught up in all kinds of online debates/noise and, not to sound too romantic about it, this work balances some of that out. Whether I'd want to do this every day--as I have in the past--is another thing.  For now, once a year is perfect.