x2 I broke my neck being stoopid in the swimming pool about 6-1/2 years ago. Since then, bending over and picking stuff up off the ground almost kills me. I used to be a believer in short bars (18” max) now I run 28”-32” most of the time so I don’t have to bend over. The worst part for me now is picking up large rounds to load in the trailer. Hookeroon gets used LOT picking up and loading rounds. I then park the splitter at the stacking area if possible and back the trailer up to the splitter. Then raise the bed and pull rounds out of the trailer directly onto the splitter table, then turn 180* and stack the splits directly off the splitter. I used to split into a pile and stack later. I HATED the stacking part. Now I don’t mind it at all and I have found that it really isn’t much slower than splitting and stacking later. If I can’t park the splitter at the stack, I throw the splits into my lawnmower trailer and transfer them to the stacking area which saves on bending over as well. Seems like every year I get a little more stove up from that moment of stooopidty 6-1/2 years ago, but have learned that slow and steady still works. Hopefully still have many years of hoarding left in me.
That’s a great haul. It’s nice to be able to get a trailer in and make a trip worth while. I can get a trailer into most scrounges but it’s the getting it out of Im worried about. I’m slowly working on getting mine stacked.
Got a beech stem that was left after the top blew out. Also a bunch of other large beech limbs on the ridge. Beautiful day to be out cutting. My son joined me, so it was that much better. Ended up with another dump truck load 5 rows deep! Had to saw some in half cause they were too heavy to leave whole!
Some of our beech will blow over entirely, but most of the time, the top half of the tree will completely break off leaving the stem to fell. The only trees I’ve fell entirely for firewood in the woods have been ash after they’ve gotten the borer. This winter so far, I’ve fell 2 beech stems that were left standing and two cherry stems that were left standing. That storm we got last year was brutal! I have 2 more beech stems that are standing that I’ll take pics of before I fell them. Ones quite a whopper. Gonna be a lot of wood in that thing. You going after the tree that’s down behind the last beech you finished? Couldnt tell what it was in the pics you posted.
