Nice job of cleaning up the woodlot. Trillium is our official Provincial (Ontario) flower, btw. I wish I could find morels on my woodlot.
Well, next week you won't be splitting wood; you'll be watching the Packer's game! Congratulations to the Packers! As for splitting, to me it is just too much messing around getting the splitter out every time you cut wood. I think overall it saves a lot of time to just sort of half stack up the wood in winter then come spring, after the snow melts, get the splitter out and do it all at one time. A big time labor saver to me. Besides, starting that thing when it is cold is a bit too much if you don't have electric start and not many splitters do. Believe me, as you age, you dislike recoil starters a lot more and more as time goes on.
Backwoods Savage , yeah, yesterday was a lot of wasted time screwing with the splitter. I can't argue that. However that was a first for me too. This was the first time splitting in the woods. I simply wanted to get a start on it, and get something done before it got and soggy outside. I also thought splitting in the woods would keep the splitter chaff off of the lawn. The splitter and the ATV don't fit on the trailer at the same time. So there's 2x the work driving the car and trailer back and forth to my buddy's place, which is a mile as the crow flies, but probably 3x that in road distance. If I could do this as a full day or two deal, and pound it all out in that timeframe, with bare minimum 2 people that would work. Leave the ATV and splitter chained at the wood lot overnight. That way there's less of that work. I typically get a whole lot of rounds and split a large amount at a crack. I bring them to my buddy's and split at his house. When the wood is split, there's a chance it can walk. I don't trust my neighbor's at the wood lot, of you can't tell. That wood that I split yesterday won't be there too long as I'll either take it l home or to my buddy's house down the road. I'm building a proper wood shed at my house, so I have to vacate wood from the area where I've been stacking. That's where the shed will go. As far as recoil starting, that won't be a problem for me. I'll be waterskiing into my 70's. . Pulling a rope a few times won't bother me. That's 30 years from now anyway. Who knows, in 30 years we might have an atomic splitter that doesn't need to be pulled. Yes, my Packers will be playing next weekend again. I'm very happy about that. I'll be cheering then on from my lucky couch of course.
I actually missed the kickoff and listened to the first drive by the cowboys on the radio. I got to home just as the Packers recieved the cowboys first punt. My awesome wife had a bloody Mary all made up for me, and my lucky Charles Woodson 21 Packer jersey at the kitchen counter. SON!
Here's what I did earlier. I moved the rest of my wood from the lower stacks to my patio. That should be enough for this heating season. There's 2 rows deep. There was a bit of stuff left up at the house, but I at least doubled what I had at the patio.
Yes, not a total loss. My wife also made awesome sweet heat asian wings tonight as well. It was a first try on those and she nailed it. I slimed the tire on the wheelbarrow, and that held. We thought the wheelbarrow tire would hold air after we got all of the pine needles out of the bead area. Nope. The slime held great though, once the wheel was put to use and spun a bit.
Here's what I did today. Well, part of what I did. With the 6" or so of fresh snow we got the other day, the conditions were perfect for hauling. The chains I put on last Saturday we very helpful. Load 1 With the depth of the snow that load is the most that can be pulled at a time. Load 2 Load 3 Load 4 Load 5 5 loads like this and the trailer is full. Load 6, which ended up on trailer load #2 The big round is basswood. The other bigger rounds are cherry. All the rest of the loads are beech, except load 5 which has sugar maple and beech. Here's the trailer load 1. My buddy stopped over and we got the second trailer full. 4 more sled loads before it got too dark, loaded the trailer with the wood, and the other trailer with the ATV. Each trailer is 2 face cords. So I hauled out 1.3 cords today. I'll get out again next weekend.
Heres a pic that is the largest load of logs ever pulled by two horses. Happened up here in the U.P. I'm just showing you so that you have to learn how to stack your wagon better!!!
Up at 530 today tinkered in the shop, fed the hounds, plowed the driveway, b.s'd with the neighbor and split and stacked some sugar maple all before breakfast
Lol. I've seen that old BS tale over the years too. At best it went on flat land only, and not that far. I mean 2 horse power and both with 4 wheel drive with a weight of several tons, why couldn't you not go up any of the porcupine mtns? I've loaded this sled with more wood per load, and its only ever ended with me taking a few logs off and retrying the grade. Each one of those loads has more weight in the sled than the ATV itself weighs. That ATV only weighs 300 lbs, I nearly double that weight when I get on it. You should have seen it when my buddy sat on the rear rack while getting up the last hill to get to the road. The front wheels were being carried. Yeehaw! Gas is cheap. It's also fun to make more trips