We do not own fancy wood splitting tools and ...not that its relevant -but I am also afraid of heights.
You see, we have a wood stove, and while we do not use it to heat our home - it supplements where baseboard heat leaves off… in that my chilly wife likes it WARM…. 76° is not uncommon on our first floor.
To effectively use a wood stove you need wood. We have been very blessed when it comes to acquiring wood. We get wood for free.
Now wipe away those images of my frugal wife and I stopping along side the road and hacking up fallen trees with a McCulloch tucked in the truck.
Nope - doesn't happen.
These days, our wood gets delivered, and sometimes stacked. Yes, for free. Yes, we are very grateful. My Italian wife does supply a tray of her amazing meatballs in exchange for the free wood. (so if you do bring us wood – please expect meatballs.)
Other than bringing it in and lighting it on fire tho, that is pretty much the extent of our involvement with our firewood.
Until this weekend.
First, we have been limb’ing some trees around the yard to bring some more light down to the lawn. These were good sized limbs and we didn’t want to see any waste.
My patient wife used her loppers to trim all the branches, and then I used my circular saw to cut them into fire lengths. Right.. I do not own a chainsaw.
(Tho I am still waiting for a ‘chainsaw review’…you know who you are…)
Here is some of the wood we cut up that afternoon.
Later that day, after hours of general yard work and limb cutting, my petite wife re-discovers pieces of tree trunk from a maple tree we had removed last year.
We had asked them to leave the wood. They left us pieces from the trunk which were about 12 to 18 inches across. We just stacked them up and left them – we had no idea what we were going to do with them.
She decided we should split this wood. We had a dull ax, a sledge hammer and a wedge.
I was skeptical to say the least… ok… I believe I called her a lunatic.
She is persistent, that adorable-lunatic-wife of mine.
It was a slow start – since neither of us had ever actually split wood without the use of a hydraulic log splitter, so there was a learning curve.
But once we got the hang of it… we found it rather gratifying.
It’s a job that has immediate results. And (as Suzanne points out) it’s also great for those middle-aged triceps.
We sorta wish we had more to split. Maybe I need to tuck a chainsaw in the back of the convertible in case I see a fallen tree along side the road…
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