Thanksgiving weekend of 2004, a large coast live oak fell on our neighbors' property, just over the fence. I called him and told him. "Oh. no! What do I do? Who should I call???" (City people...) "You're talking to him! Give me a couple of weeks and we'll get it out of there." I gave the tree to my dad for his 80th birthday that Dec 6th. I had his Deere saws, and Mom gave him a new Craftsman for his birthday. I enlisted the neighbor on my other side (we had 10 acres). Between Dad, neighbor Dave, my then wife, 2 tractors, 5 chainsaws, (my wife had her own...),and an assortment mauls, wedges, and sledges), we took the fence down, cut up, skidded, split, and stacked that tree onto my propery, and chipped the brush with my 12HP DR chipper/shredder. You need to know that Dad was an OG firewood cutter for fun and exercise. and winter fires in the fireplaces. Before chainsaws. he cut up oak with a one man crosscut logging saw and split it by hand, while working for Deere and the City of Moline IL. In the late 50s and 60s Dutch Elm disease killed 80,000 American Elms in Moline. Dad was mayor in the 60's and had elm rounds delivered to our house to save the City some dump fees. That's when I learned to split wood by hand. We split and burned 12 cords of wood that year. the year of the Never Ending Fire", in the living room fireplace. We never used a splitter. Dad took crotches and knots as a personal affront or challenge, and would worry them into submission no matter how many wedges it took. I know that there is a certain understandable antipathy here toward elm. All I can say is that frozen wet elm doesn't split as much as it fractures or breaks. Here are a couple of pics of Dad, 21 years ago, at 80, happily working the oak. I'm 70 now. I hope to still be going this strong when I'm 80. P.S. I just used that same maul this week, splitting some ash... Channeling my Dad...
I love that you have that maul. Love the story, and here's to Dad! That is some work y'all did! And even elm lol! I am going to split some elm here in a bit that I still have. But it is not hard cuz it is very dry.
What a neat story, and great memories! I wish I could like this twice. I enjoyed the photos and the tale - thank you very much for sharing this.
Cheers to your pops. My dad is 81 and still burns wood (with my help hoarding it). He tells the tale of remembering using a 2 man cross cut saw. He remembers when my pap bought the areas first chainsaw, which I still have and use occasionally. Bought new in that year it’s a ‘59 Pioneer 610. After 3 good run-ins w/ elm I’m over it. My first time someone said let it freeze. Well I did, a very deep freeze too. It didn’t do mine a bit of good. After discussions here, I figure in my region it just doesn’t process well. Since I’m spoiled with so much premium hardwoods, I have the ability to snob it. Works well for me. Seeing others pics we definitely have differences.
Leading by example…..I’m sure he’s proud of you! Sounds like one of those guys they broke the mold on
