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| John, Becky, Della, Herb and Tate |
After a day of getting wood, I slept late and am having trouble moving this morning...My neck and back are really stiff and sore...The job of getting wood is for younger people!..I love being out in the woods and enjoy the ride out, looking for deer, elk and coyotes... The Zumwalt prairie is beautiful this time of year, so green from all the rain and the abundant wildflowers in full bloom.
Actually I like getting wood, the smells of the forest and fresh cut trees...My Dad taught me to split wood with a maul and wedges when I was about 10 years old...As to most young children, chopping wood with an axe looked like fun to me...Daddy got tired of me constantly nagging at him to teach me to use an axe...he took the safer route with a double headed maul and wedges...He took me out to the wood pile and set me up with several rounds of a wood log and patiently demonstrated how to start the wedge in the wood, then lifting the maul higher, pounding the wedge farther into the wood, until it broke in half...I spent many hours pounding wedges into wood rounds and after I had all the wedges stuck, Daddy would come and split the wood for me and I would start over again...To this day I love splitting wood, and once I get started hate to stop until I'm wringing wet with sweat and totally exhausted...But this year I am so out of shape, that today I am paying for what little splitting I did yesterday.
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| John, Becky, Rusty, Herb and Tate |
John had some trees spotted, so we drove right to the spot and spent all day in that one place...John suits up, (chaps, wedges, axe, hard hat, ear plugs) he picks up his saw and climbs the bank to the trees...Becky makes Tate (Johns dog) wait with us until John has the trees on the ground... As she says, "Okay Tate" he is off like a shot, straight for John, barking and yipping...then Herb and Rusty limb and the trees are "snaked" with cables onto the road and into the shade so Becky can mark the log into wood length sections...then the crescendo begins as all three guys, start their chain saws...Becky and I visit until they have some of the logs cut into rounds and then we, with our ear plugs in, 6# mauls and wedges, start banging away making the rounds into loadable pieces, it is hard work for us...Soon the guys are finished sawing and they take over the mauls and make the job of splitting look easy...Herb and Becky start loading a trailer and I gather dried moss and twigs to start a fire...Rusty joins me as he loves to build fires as much as I do and soon we have a blaze going... As the blaze dies down and the larger pieces turn to charcoal, I arrange the dutch oven that is full of home made burritos over top of the coals...Place a few hot coals on top of the lid and leave lunch to heat on its own...An hour later we have two cords of wood loaded and we are ready for lunch...Everyone grabs a plate, and a foil wrapped burrito, salsa and sour cream are added to the hot burritos...pickles, chips and watermelon finish out the meal with chocolate bars for dessert.
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| Tagging the load |
Lunch is over, I clean everything up and with help from Rusty and Herb everything is again loaded into the truck...John has two more logs ready to go and the saws start again...An hour later wood is loaded and tagged and we are ready to start home...By 4pm the wood is unload and stacked...everyone is ready for a hot shower and a light supper before we climb into bed...My day started at 4am and I'm in bed by 8pm!
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