Let’s talk about firewood

[44hunter45]

The men in our family were all woodsman. From splitting redwood for grape stakes, fence post or shingles. But we cut a lot more oak and madrone for fire wood, with Doug fir in the mix. My Dad would not leave a massive Doug fir knot in the woods. He cut it with the chainsaw if he couldn’t split it. Always said it will burn all night. I miss those days….

If you cut Madrone, then you have had Poison Oak a time or two.

I never could do one without the other in my Santa Cruz County days.

The green and blue flames from Madrone are wasted in an enclosed stove. So cool to watch!

 

[MTLabrador]

My dad and brother both lost multiple large pines in wind storms since last winter. This years firewood will be ridiculously easy to collect

My folks lost a big spruce a year ago that I cut up. Unfortunately it’s a knotted tangled mess and I haven’t even tried to split any yet.

 

[adoc65]

I split all of mine with a maul, but have to admit some of the stuff with a lot of knots, I use the chain saw.

All the firewood I did with my Dad was all maul or axe.

 

[adoc65]

If you cut Madrone, then you have had Poison Oak a time or two.

I never could do one without the other in my Santa Cruz County days.

The green and blue flames from Madrone are wasted in an enclosed stove. So cool to watch!

Plenty of poison oak in my lifetime. Nothing like a bleach bath and scratch it to get rid of it while in the tub. My Dad said that an old timer he worked with in the woods told him to eat some poison oak and he would never get it again. I don’t remember Dad ever getting poison oak.

 

[Redmt]

When my son was a teenager, he's 51 now, we would hand split 3-4 cords of oak a year. It was a chore. When he would have a teenage "infraction" instead of the usual type punishment he would have to split a pile of firewood to work it off. One afternoon I hear him outside splitting wood. For the life of me I can't remember what he might have done. I started to fear that he had been put on wood splitting detail and that I couldn't remember why. I asked my wife and she didn't know why either. I walked over and asked him finally why he was splitting wood ? He gave me an answer without breaking stride. "Credit. I'm building credit".

Next story. He and a couple buddies and their girlfriends are at the County Fair. There was a sledgehammer and bell game and a bunch of muscle boys trying to ring the bell and impress their girlfriends. He waits until they were done, pays his money, steps up and rings the bell loudly. This gets lots of comments from the muscle boys and said it was just lucky that this little guy hit it perfectly and rang the bell. They bet him he couldn't do it again. They were wrong. He says to them " I've been splitting firewood since I could swing a maul"

 

[Caseknife]

Been cutting firewood my whole life. Somewhere there is a picture of me about 4 years old carrying a piece of firewood and not looking too happy.