Did you enjoy putting up firewood as a kid?

I always enjoyed it. In the fall the extended family would get together and fill the wood shed or basements at each other’s house. Grandmother would always make something good to eat after she was done cracking the whip keeping us moving.

 

I put no. Only because my brother and I had to split stacking and bringing it in the house. Was just 1 part of our choirs around the farm that had to be done. Never got to run saws till I was 16. Then My first house didn't have a chimney. 2nd house did but at 800sqft it didn't take much wood for winter to heat. 3rd house I burn 6 to 7 cords a wood a year house built in 1959 with very little insulation and 2x4 walls. Bought house in summer . Now I know why his sister wanted to sell this house when she was the last 1 there. Fuel oil bill first year we moved in was insane.

 

I grew up helping in the firewood making process. At the cottages up north, I'd help stack and haul firewood for to get the big fireplace going, we'd have a lot of fires in the fire pit outside too. I was a Boy Scout, and even attained the rank of Eagle Scout. Have camped a lot growing up. When I was 7, my family moved to a home that had a woods attached and Dad put in a slammer insert upstairs and a wood furnace in the basement that tied into the ductwork to keep the 2 NG furnaces that were in the house from running. That house used a lot of firewood. I want allowed to use a chainsaw until I was a teenager. I'd run a log splitters, clean chimneys, and haul a lot of firewood until I could run a saw, While in Wisconsin, all of our homes had at least an open FP that we'd use. As I've become older, and wiser, I wanted to do like my dad and pay less to the power and NG company, so I found this place and the rest is history.

 

Right?

We had an awesome janitor in middle school. He was a father of one of my classmates. My mom was a forgetful/ bad mom and sometimes wouldn't remember to pick me up after my after school activities. Sports, band, debate, physics, etc... apparently her work was more important. All the buses were gone. I'd call her from the pay phone, but no answer. This was pre inexpensive cell phone days. ..So I'd end up hanging out with Rick, the classmate who's dad was the janitor ( Rick Sr) shooting basketball etc, until his dad was done with his work for the day. Sometimes it just the janitor looking out for me waiting at the front door of the school for my mom to arrive, and that didn't happen a lot. So he'd check in and give me a ride home.

Typing this out now as an adult, I see how bad of a mom my mom was in many ways. Now I know why I don't have a good relationship with her.

 

Eric VW .........

I grew up with being familiar to the "lazy man's load" phrase also!

 

Sorry man, that stinks...makes me realize that I need to give my parents an extra hug...they weren't perfect, but did pretty well honestly...

 

This is part of what makes you the good man you are today. Sounds like Rick was a good man.

 

Grade school I went to consisted of 4 rooms and 8 grades. 4 teachers and 2 cooks. I don't know who came in to clean the school but I do remember when in 8th grade we volunteered to empty waste baskets from the classrooms. The trash was tossed into the furnace and sometimes when we would find an empty aerosol can, that would get tossed into the furnace. We then waited for the big BANG. Didn't take much to keep us amused.

 

Yeah, my mom is lucky that Rick Sr was a good guy. Could've ended up really bad otherwise.
I turned out all right-ish. I think.

 

Thanks Dave (s)!

 

Spent at least a weekend at a local campground every year as a kid...it had quite a few cabins and permanent buildings. One weekend we started throwing sandstone into the fire after the adults went to bed...after we ran out of (easily accessible) sandstone, we moved on to aerosol cans...I think it started with an (fairly) empty Off skeeter spray...that big boom had us hooked! We started scouting all the buildings for aerosol cans of any type...it was a big game, toss cans in, run and hide, adults wake up/come out and yell into the night for us to straighten up and go to bed...after they quite peeking out the windows we'd go get more...there were some comments made in the morning, but I think they were hard pressed to do anything about it since it was pretty much all of us, and "nobody knew anything"

 

Yup, for sure

 

We had to move closer to Folsom for services for my autistic son, so we are below the snow elevation now. We are on 10ac in the foothills well away from the tourists but we got pounded by the rain! Creeks are running that haven't run in many years. Heck, I didn't even know there was a creek behind the goat pen. It overwhelmed our drainage and a lot of water got under the house. Looks like I need to buy a sump pump to empty out one section under the house. Our gravel driveways washed out so tractor time is going to happen this weekend. Otherwise we are good, thanks for asking! I can't complain, several of our neighbors wells ran dry last summer, we need all this rain.

 

I drove through that area in September on our way from Tahoe to Livermore to see family. It was definitely dry , in the mtns and even more so all the way down to Livermore. Glad to see you got some rain, you definitely need it.

 

Didn't do wood as a kid. We had a fireplace that my father would get wood for occasionally. Grandparents had a coal burning stove in the front room.

Didn't start burning until I was living in a mobile home with expensive electric heat. It had a small barrel stove piped out a window. I was working on the southern Oregon coast, and had an unlimited wood supply from my employer.

 

For those that can’t picture what a pile wingdam looks like, here’s a couple pictures stolen from the Army Corp of Engineers ( the agency that built and maintains them) website.



Some of these are the very wingdams that served as our “Wood Lot”

Their purpose is to divert water from the secondary channels and sides of the river, to keep the water flow in main channels higher, to reduce the need for dredging

It is pretty easy to see how they would work very well for catching floating logs. We pulled a lot of BTU’s off them over the years



Doug

 

They can sometimes be good fishing spots too.

 

Very True, just be sure to give them the respect that they deserve, they do increase the current through and around them (which is their reason for being) it takes an experienced boater to maneuver close around the upstream side of them. If one were to end up in the water in front of one, it could end very Badly , Very Quickly

When the river was low enough, we would often walk the horizontal center pile, and find a lot of fishing tackle snagged on them, especially Salmon gear. We also would occasionally find a propeller blade stuck in them, from an unsuspecting boater, that “Found “ the wingdams while they were submerged during high water



Doug

 

Family never burned wood minus the occasional fire in the fireplace with purchased wood. I don’t like gathering wood now so don’t think I would’ve liked it as a kid.

 

You seem pretty definite about that.