Cutting wood =

[Bob95065]

All three of us came home yesterday. Thebaby is eating like a horse and it's coming out the other end the way it should. We go to the doctor in a hour so we'll find out if he's gaining weight.

I bought a cople of Stihl chainsaws on EBay from loggers in Oregon. One is a 029 with a 24" bar and the other is a 066 with a 32" bar. I haven't come across anything I couldn't cut with these two saws.

I have an old Lickety Slitter log splitter I was given a few years ago. I had to replace the 8HP Kohler engine the DPO ruined. He knew enough about engines to take it apart to find the broken rod but didn't have the smarts to store the parts in a place where he coudl find them later. I found a complete engine online that I rebuilt for it but I don't use it much at all because I like splitting wood with my maul better.

I e-mailed my mom and told her about this web site yesterday. Dad doesn't even know how to turn the computer on much les go online. I found a Stihl 310 locally that I am considering getting him for Christmas but I woudl hate to see the old JD 50V go. After going with a better saw like the Stihl it is hard to use that old homeowner grade with the safety chain. It cuts so slow.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the forum. I already love this board.

Bob

 

[Wolfcsm]

I just joined the board and haven't felt the urge to post until I saw this thread.

I grew up in an unincorporated area in Cook County, Illinois. My parents still live in the house on three acres I grew up in and my grandparents lived in a second house on the property. In 1979 when I was 7 my grandfather was dying of congestive heart failure and my mom talked my dad into buying a wood stove to keep the house warm for him. My dad made a friend at the International Port of Chicago that brought him 40 yard dumpster loads of hardwood that my mom and dad cut up for firewood. My dad made a sawhorse of that foreign hardwood sometime in the late 1970's or early 1980's that sat out in the weather all the time that was just replaced this summer. That wood was good stuff.

My brother Paul and I stacked wood but weren't really interested until we were a few years older. I will always remember looking out the window and seeing my mom putting a beam on the sawhorse and feeing it through as my dad cut it into firewood length pieces.

In 1982 dad bought a John Deere 50V chainsaw that was made by Echo to cut firewood. I still tune up that saw for him. When Paul and I got into high school we took over a lot of the firewood work. We only had one maul (no log splitter) and used to fight over it after school and on weekends. My dad said he never saw kids fight over work. Anyway, we went to college and helped with wood during the summer.

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and took a job that led me to New Jersey. The free wood from the port dried up but they made friends with a tree trimmer and they used to stockpile firewood all summer. I would go back for a week and split and stack six cords with a maul. My hands would swell and hurt but I loved the way it felt to work with my hands.

Eventually I moved to Santa Cruz, CA where I still live now. One year work really picked up and I couldn't get back to split wood for them. They went to turn on the furnace and they found the jets had rusted shut from lack of use! The next summer I went back and found a log splitter in the local paper that dad and I bought for $150. It had sat outside in the weather for years and was a little neglected, but the big parts were all there. I went through it for him and got it running. The old Briggs 10HP that was on it was in need of rebuild and I couldn't get parts because it was so old. I wound up finding a International Cub Cadet junkyard in South Bend, IN. I put a 10HP Kohler with electric start on there for him. He still uses that splitter today.

I bought a house in Santa Cruz in 2001. When I was looking for a house I made sure it had a wood stove. I heat with wood here, although I don’t need as much as we did in Illinois.

I got married in January 2001. At first Jill didn't like the idea of stacking firewood until she moved in after we got married and saw the drastic drop in the PG&E bill from the wood heat. That spring I sold me Toyota truck and bought a 3/4 ton Dodge diesel primarily for hauling wood and she went with me and stacked wood in the truck while I split it with the maul. Cutting firewood as a family had passed from my parents to the next generation.

This past summer was a good year for firewood. There were tree major wildfires in Santa Cruz last summer and the last was blamed on the huge eucalyptus groves at the south end of the county. An elder at our church suffered great damage and loss due to the fire and started cutting down the eucalyptus trees. another guy from church had me bring down six trees and he wants six more brought down next spring. I have a friend who has access to 15,000 acres of forest his company owns if I ever come up short of wood.

Today Jill and I came home from the hospital with our four day old son. He was born on the 16th and had a hard time fighting dehydration and required an IV last night. When we got home it was 60° in the house so I started a fire to warm the place up. It feels so good to warm the house for your family with wood you cut and split. I can't wait until I have a little stacker to help me with the wood during the summer. I'm already figuring out what kind of chainsaw to get him when he gets older. I imagine he’ll use one of mine the same way I used my dad’s.

I guess the birth of our son and reading this post got me thinking about these things.

Bob

Congradulations on your new son!


Having a fireplace was a prerequsite for the house. I have to run the heater once or twice a year, just to make sure it is working. Beyond that, we have the firepalce working most days, during the winter.

I left Oregon to get out of the woods in "72. Now one of my forms of recreation is cutting my firewood. Besides, I can measure a cord and have it come ouot to be 128 cubic feet almost every time - unlike what I received when I bought wood.

Hal

 

[woodbooga]

Making firewood is a nexus where many things converge.

1. Economic strategy. Every dollar saved on oil for heat and propane for cooking is a dollar saved. It's also a "money where your mouth is" way of promoting energy independence. That same dollar that's getting saved is also prevented from getting shipped over to some foreign government that doesn't much like us.

2. Hobby. Splitting is my favorite part. Put on the radio, listen to the football game, and swig at a Rolling Rock between swings of the maul is my idea of paradise.

3. Feeling of connectedness to nature. While I was tossing some oak rounds into my pickup recently, I looked at them and thought, boy, that's 50 years' worth of stored solar energy waiting for me to release it in the form of heat in the old cookstove. And after the burning's done, the ash gets spread on the lawn. Whole circle of life thing, I guess.

 

[KMB]

Bob95065,

Congrats on the new little fella. Good firewood story/post!

Kevin

 

[coostv]

I just joined the board and haven't felt the urge to post until I saw this thread.
I guess the birth of our son and reading this post got me thinking about these things.
Bob

I enjoyed reading your post tremendously. Excellent story!

Congratulations on the new baby boy. I have 4 kids (8, 11, 15, & 15) myself, they are a such blessing to my wife and I. It is amazing to watch them grow and become their own independent personalities.


Chris

 

[slofr8]

I like cutting and splitting too. I muscle through the Maple and Beech but enjoy splitting Popple the most. Good quiet, quality time with the kids.
Dan.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZBSQpGFqus

 

[aktaylors]

What a great thread. I just got in from filling my wood rack in my garage. I keep a face cord in the garage and the rest outside. Winter has set in in Alaska. We got about 7 inches of snow today and it's supposed to get below zero tonight. I set here next to my stove, it's 87 in my house and the world series is on. It could only be better if the sox could have pulled it out,but that is for a different thread on a different forum.
I always equate burning wood with hunting. The easy part ends when you pull the trigger( Moose are really big lol) or when you drop a tree. But it's truely someofthebest back breaking work in the world. I love to look at my wood pile. My wife calls me a wood whore! But nothing beats the feeling of having your wood in or the year.
One time this year I stopped at the store for lunch with my truck full of wood(way overloaded of course) and this lady asked me if I felt bad for destroying trees. I told her those were my solar panels. She looked at me funny and I said where do you think trees get the energy to grow!!
Keep cutting boys!

 

[bigjake]

You know i had a guy try and explain this to me but until i started cutting
wood i didnt get it i have the money to run the furnace but i enjoy cutting
wood we have a few of us cut and it is relaxing plus having a wood fire at
night just seems right and i also fix cars for a living .and it does take my mind
away from the shop.

 

[juice4020]

There is so much heat in wood. Cut it=heat, split it= heat, load it = heat, stack it= heat , burn it =heat
My friends think i am crazy, I cut for me, my grandparents and my aunt and uncle. I am at almost 30 full chord since may!





046 mag
super 250
jd 70v
192T

 

[KRS]

I never feel so close to nature as I do with a 150 decibel saw screaming in my hands.............

KRS

 

[mtfallsmikey]

For me, as well as some others here, it's not only cutting/splitting, etc..

IT'S WOODWORKING TOO!!!

especially if you have nice lumber from trees you have harvested yourself!

 

[mechanickeven]

firewood has been a way of life for my familly

growing up as a child i hated firewood, had to carry it, split it stack it, and carry again.lol most of the households in my familly burned it to save money. but now as an adult i find it relaxing to do the whole process. i just recently got a old farm house with a yukon combo furnace so i decided to dust off the old homelite and get back at it. cutting wood has brought me and my familly together for years and is a important part of my life. I am glad i found this site i enjoy the advice, and like reading your stories too. now i must drink a schmidt. take care guys:spam: minnesota the land of spam

 

[mtfallsmikey]

I didn't know Schmidt's was still around.....here in Va., we still drink National Bohemian and Old German.

 

[Locoweed]

Cutting is fun, no doubt about it. Backing up to a warm stove on a cold day rates pretty high on my favorite things list also.

 

[oneoldbanjo]

Cutting and stacking wood has certainly helped me to keep in good shape.

The other day a fellow came over to get some extra wood that I had laying in field and no place to store....so I offered him some free wood. We put my trailer up near the pile and we started loading some wood, as I picked up a round that was about 24" long and almost as big around.....I saw him look at me kind of funny and he said......."I can't do that"! I told him I had been cutting and stacking about 50 chords of wood this year......and I had plenty of practice. Moving and stacking wood has kept my legs, arms and back in good shape - I don't abuse myself and lift things that are too heavy - but I can lift some pretty good size pieces that weight almost as much as I do. If it had not been for the workouts I have gotten cutting and moving wood I would certainly be weaker.

I also find a certain satisfaction from working outdoors, seeing my neighborhood deer and turkeys on almost every outing, visiting over the fence with my neighbors, and just getting some fresh air and some quiet time (whent the chainswas and splitter are not running).

 

[woodbooga]

I also find a certain satisfaction from working outdoors, seeing my neighborhood deer and turkeys on almost every outing, visiting over the fence with my neighbors, and just getting some fresh air and some quiet time (whent the chainswas and splitter are not running).

I had about the best Sunday a man could ask for - new used chainsaw (don't be too envious, a newer Mac 3818 but extremely well maintained and low hours), an afternoon at the playground with my 3-yr-old boy followed by a solid day of cutting to enhance my 2009-10 supply. There's a road through a field bounded by woods. Landowner lets me cut anything dead and downed, including a tree-sized limb from a 150-year-old red oak. Enroute to the cutting site, I got stuck in a backwoods traffic jam - a gaggle of about 20 wild turkeys what wouldn't budge, so I just popped the Ranger in neutral, engaged the emergency brake, and cursed the fact I was without my Thompson blackpowder (muzzleloaders only for time being).

 

[Gypo Logger]

I never tier of working in the great outdoors.

 

[svk]

I saw this thread and already knew it was a gypo resurrection before I clicked on it

 

[Gypo Logger]

It's fun hunting for burls too.

 

[Ambull01]

I saw this thread and already knew it was a gypo resurrection before I clicked on it

This thread was made back in '08! lol. I like how he's at least consistent though.