An Annual Festival Commences

Around this time each year I try to get the following winter’s firewood processed (e.g. 2025/2026).  Fortunately I was being visited by my brother for a week, so we knocked out many tons of wood.  Adding a second person to the crew does not double the productivity, it quadruples it!  Especially when the second person is younger, bigger, and stronger than I am.

We spent three days working together, beginning with harvesting a cluster of four large-ish trees that came down in a wind storm a year ago.  It was a near-perfect blend of trees/woods; maple, white oak, locust, and birch.

After first cleaning up the brush-y ends of the trees we just worked our way up the trunks, cutting them into ~16″ bolts.  By the time my little S10 was loaded fully, it was definitely a low rider.

By the end of the second day we had a substantial wall o’wood to split and stack.  Once we got the crib filled at the cabin I started to build the pallet stacks next to the barn.  Of course, now that I want to spend a part of every day doing that we have a forecast for a week of daily rain after six months of drought.  Sigh.

I continue working alone after he departed and the pace is demonstrably tortillian.  But, I will soon have all the firewood for winter 2025/2026 processed and continue working on several other large windfall trees on the hillside, including a pair of gigantic locust trees so large I might have to borrow a larger chain saw to get them cut up.

My ultimate goal is to get firewood processed through the end of the decade.

Stay tuned.