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I find cutting firewood to be a rather enjoyable pastime, especially if it is not done in an emergency. If the temperature is twenty below zero, the only heat source a person has is a wood stove, and you threw the last piece in that morning; that is an emergency. It is best not to get into that situation.

My wife and I no longer have to deal with having to cut wood since the new house does not have a wood stove. Fortunately, my son, Damon, has a wood boiler heating his house so I can cut wood with him whenever I feel the need for a little fresh air and exercise. The only problem with him is he gets entirely too serious about his wood cutting. I like to go into the timber on a cool but sunny afternoon and cut wood for an hour or two. He will cut wood like he might freeze during the winter if he does not get a whole bunch of wood in that day. My leisurely approach to cutting wood has not gotten me into the physical condition required to stick with it for a whole day. By the end of a day of sawing as though winter would be here next week, I am ready to die, but just too tired and sore to do it.

Two week's ago, Damon asked if he and a friend could remove some of the thorn trees and old trees that were dead. That is like asking if I minded if he took out the garbage or plowed the snow out of the driveway. I assured him it would be fine and I would even help.

Saturday morning, Damon and Zane showed up, followed by his friend, Dave, and his two sons. The equipment gathered for this occasion was more impressive than the manpower. They brought a large four wheel drive tractor with a loader on the front. They also had a very large dump truck. I had my little loader tractor, and Damon brought the wood splitter. It did not take long to set up a production line. Dead trees and honey locusts were dropped and dragged to the clearing with the big tractor. A person there would block them up into manageable sized pieces. I picked those up with the little tractor and carried them to the splitter. From there, one of the guys rolled off large pieces Zane ran the handle on the splitter turning them into smaller more easily handled pieces of firewood which were thrown into a large pile. When the pile got too high around the log splitter, the big tractor was used to scoop it up and put it in the dump truck.

We may have spent four or five hours working at it and carried off two dump truck loads of firewood. We also had enough logs cut and dragged out to fill another two trucks. Both of the guys thought two loads apiece would last them the winter. It made for a pleasant outing in the woods and nobody had to work too hard.

From this experience, I decided during all the years I was cutting wood when I needed it, I was doing it wrong. All a person really needed to do is gather together several large people that own several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment and get the whole thing done in a day or two. It may not be the physical fitness program it could be, but much of the timber was improved, two houses have heat for the winter, and I am not so sore I cannot move.[[In-content Ad]]

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