Faliure vs. Wood Heating

I stopped by my friends farm last Sunday to borrow a skill saw. It was dripping. Everything was dripping. The earlier part of my day had been spent trying to stop a roof from leaking and literally “destroying all my precious work!”. Essentially I was feeling vulnerable to the world and a little incapable. Lucky the universe put me to work on something within my reach in the form of bucking the top of a 70’ pine.

The top had blown out in the last storm, but had been on its way out for a while now. Pines don’t do so well on our side of the cascades and therefore are kinda set up for a disaster like this. The top had come pretty close to taking out my friend Jacob’s hut/cabin, fondly referred to as “ the man shack”. But now, oh how the mighty had fallen. The top was a solid 20’-25’ feet and 16’’ at the break. and because it had been partially dead for a while, there was the possibility of some usable fire wood.

Coming from a feeling of incompetence in other things, I was almost overly enthusiastic in dealing with this task. It was that I was being unsafe, more like unseemly. When you start cutting wood, be it felling, bucking or splitting to much enthusiasm often starts to look grotesque, even ghoulish. Like a grave digger with a boom box. Keeping that in mind, I joyously sunk the bar of the saw into my first cut. The saw was an older Stihl “36.” Old enough that the new “0” hadn’t been added, making it a “360” . Really it was the perfect saw for the job, light enough to handle easily and enough muscle for me to push it. It felt like the sort of small pickup I prefer as opposed to the "Hummer" of a saw my dad uses, an Echo 66. I guess he's just getting older and needs a bigger saw?

The top was caught in the middle of a willow tree so there was a lot of cutting above my head and judging weight distribution. I wanted the weight to shift in my advantage and bring the tip down, but I didn’t want it to fucking roll out of the willow on to me. As I started,things just happened so quickly and perfectly. Within a few minuets my friends had a new stack of wood and I had renewed confidence. It felt seamless. It felt like this was what I was supposed to do. And as it always does with wood chopping, it felt like I was fulfilling an ancestral expectation of good work and survival. Nothing to make you feel better about a sense of alienation and disconnect than cutting wood. The sense of providing shelter for "my people" goes so deep in me and I feel like a dick even blogging about it.

(posted by DK, Olympia)

SENTIMENTAL CHAINSAW

Finally went out and got some real wood chopping done last evening. Burning pallet pieces gets old. They burn so fast and hot but it seems that the heat doesn't last as long. Plus, it's kind of a waste of prime kindling.
So, out at my parents' house (out in the woods) they took a bunch of trees down about a year ago. These trees have been partially "bucked" and are ready to become excellent firewood. As a new owner of a house with a wood burning stove, in a small northwest town in the last of the winter, amid occasional freak cold snaps, I am grateful to have parents with an abundance of wood that needs chopping and burning.

My dad gave me some great tools. First, an old chainsaw that used to belong to my grandpa. Sentimental chainsaw. No safety bar, some calibration problems, perhaps in need of a sharpening, small, but I am so excited about it. I love chainsawing. A strange and powerful sensation. Also, it's really beautiful looking.

Also I was given an old splitting maul. Nothing special. Pretty dull. It's been repaired a few times.

I chainsawed until the chainsaw stopped working (I think the fuel thing needs some calibration from some experts) and then split rounds until it was too dark to see. In the low light I backed the truck up to the pile and threw everything in.
The wood is pretty wet from sitting out in the NW weather for a year, but there are a few pieces I'm able to burn. Slimy bark falling off, amazing smell, sore muscles. "The wood heats twice" or whatever. Who said that? Thoreau? Would he chop me into pieces for "blogging" about it?
I know this exercise in absurdity (a blog about chopping wood?) will be challenging and the novelty will wear off, but why not see how far we can push it?
All I'm saying is, I chopped some wood and it was awesome, and now I have some hand-me-down tools and a pile of wood drying under the porch. The fire is going. It smells amazing. My work clothes are filthy. My back kind of hurts. I am very happy.

(posted by PW, Anacortes)

Last Wednesday, I helped take down a Big Leaf Maple (Aser Macrophylum) out on Johnson Point. Cutting down trees in close proximity to buildings is always tedious, but this one took literally all day. I had the chain saws sharp at 8:30 and I loaded them into the truck at 5:14 exactly. I checked. 9 hours for a single tree. It wasn't the biggest maple that I had worked on, but at about 75 ft. it was certainly worth noting.

(posted by DK, Olympia)

TEARING THROUGH PALLETS

Woke up this morning to a weird flurry of mid March snow. Just moved into a new house with a wood burning stove. Finally. So, now in this weird time of year where some days it feels like winter is done and we can open the doors and windows for the warm late winter sun to come in, and other days it is a blizzard, and other days it is both, now I have no wood pile.

Yesterday I went over to the old house and got the driest of the pallets in preparation for the next remaining months of cold nights. Cut up a few as night fell but didn't want to annoy the new neighborhood.

Today as the snow melted in the late afternoon I tore through a bunch of pallets with my hand me down Black & Decker skilsaw, pretty recklessly. Chunks were flying. After sawing the pallets into thirds I'd use a regular hammer to dislodge the pieces from the cross beams, hitting from behind and firing the pieces directly into the stacked woodpile. At the end I had a beautiful pile of what most people would consider prime kindling, although I'll be using it as my only firewood. It burns really fast and hot. Kind of stupid and wasteful, I know. I'll be going out to get some real firewood soon.

But today in the morning sun as the surprise blizzard burned off we sat in the warm rays next to the blazing pallet wood fire. It was blissful. Hours passed.

(posted by PW, Anacortes)