Further firewood and other outdoor adventures

Yesterday Claude Mathis and I spent most of the morning until just after noon splitting wood from the huge oak tree we cut down for the lady near Mineral Bluff. Wow, when Claude said the splitter was 'massive' he wasn't kidding. Wish I had a camera phone so I could have taken a picture of it.

Imagine a two-wheel cart made of steel beams, with a trailer hitch on one end, wheels that look like they were surplus from a WWII jeep, a two-cylinder motor (no mufflers!) that may have been an early motorcycle motor connected with a big chain to a 3-stage pump that came from the hydraulic system of a big airplane. There were two tanks made of stainless steel (the only part of the contraption not rusty!), one for gas, and one for hydraulic oil. At the back of this thing was a HUGE beam, with a hydraulic cylinder that looked like it may have come from a front-end loader like they used to use in the mines near here. (Did I mention that this thing was built in the repair shop at the Copper Company, when the guys there didn't have anything else to work on?)

At the foot of the huge beam was a steel plate that drove itself solidly into the ground and formed a base for the wood you want to split. The cylinder drives a wedge that looked like an execution instrument...and did it ever split wood! Sometimes the oak was a little too tough, and we'd shut the motor down. Then you'd have to wind an old-fashioned starter cord and give it a smart, hard yank, and hope the thing would start. Claude tried to start it for 10 minutes before I got there, and finally figured out that the hyd. pump wasn't cut off--he was trying to simultaneously start the motor and drive the pump! But after that, it worked fine, most of the time. We split some 'rounds' that were 22" high and 32" across!

I really loaded down 'old yeller,' my pickup. When I started up the hill, the back bumper was so low that I dragged the ground when I went over a ditch. Fortunately momentum carried me on over and up the hill.

Claude didn't have good luck with his trailer...it was loaded so that at every bounce, the wheels of the trailer screamed from rubbing against the fenders. And his big Suburban-type vehicle would just sit on the hill with its tires spinning on the pasture grass, trying to pull the hill.

Then on the 4th try coming up the hill, his trailer hitch actually broke! But he did manage to get his share of the wood home by today, and was getting his trailer out of the pasture and fixed.

I drove no more than 30 mph all the way home, since the heavy load really had me swaying. But I made it, and all the wood's now stacked between some dogwoods beside our house.

Today I spent all day clearing low-hanging limbs, burning our pile of brush, and beginning to cut a roadway to my shop I'm putting up in our back woods. One tree fell the wrong way and I had to winch it out of another tree! I've ended up with another pile of branches about as big as the pile I burned.

Almost forgot...I finally got almost all our assorted power equipment to the shop for repairs and maintenance. I'll have to take Mamaw's snapper on Monday or Tuesday. Matt, if you read this, you're probably going to get either Mamaw's snapper or my old John Deere, whichever is worth keeping. I'll sell the other one and give the money to Mamaw. Hope I get the tiller and/or mechanical mule back in time to do some fall plowing for our garden. I've decided that the problem is that our soil is just poor. It needs fertilizer and amendment...just too much red clay! And I'm going to make the garden spot a lot smaller than before, so we can actually tend it. I may even move everything up near the garden I made for Debbie this year.

The junker Ford mower is on the back of the truck to go to the scrapyard. Debbie's really glad!

Must get a shower. I'm really tired and dirty.

Firewood 2

Today I spent a couple of hours helping load up the lady's share of firewood from the tree we cut (see the previous post) Claude cut it in 1-foot lengths for her little woodstove. She will get about 4 or 5 "yard trailer" loads, some of which we will split for her tomorrow. I brought home a truckload of oak for me. I will have to split some of it, too.

Tomorrow we tackle splitting the big rounds with a big hydraulic log splitter that was originally built over at the old Copper Company. Claude says it is a real monster, and that our only problem will be getting the wood rounds up onto it to split.

After we finished up at the lady's house, Claude came by our place and cut down three big maple trees that were damaged about 6 years ago when the remains of a hurricane came through. So I have lots of wood to cut up for this fall and winter!

Maybe we can get the fireplace insert we've been thinking of buying. It's supposed to pretty much heat up the whole house, if you let the "fan only" part of the heat pump system run. We'll see!

Firewood

It all started with a post on the "free stuff" group that operates in our county. A lady mentioned that she would split a whole oak tree's worth of firewood, if someone would cut the dead tree down for her.

So I went by and saw it...a MASSIVE white oak tree that died last spring. It probably was a victim of lightining. I may take a photo of the view from this lady's yard. She has awesome views of the surrounding mountains in NC/TN.

Later in the day, I learned that Claude Mathis, our associational missionary (that's a Baptist thing) also was looking for firewood. He has 1) a better chainsaw than me, 2) training from Disaster Relief on how to use the chainsaw, and 3) acess to a woodsplitter. So he was elected to take down the tree.

Mostly, I stood around and watched, though I did lend a hand with an ax when we ran into embedded old nails in the trunk. And I sharpened the chainsaw some. I left Claude yesterday afternoon cutting "rounds" out of the trunk. It was over 32" in diameter, and the tree was well over 40 feet tall. Like I said, massive! I'd hate to think how much the thing weighs.

Anyway, that's a chore I have to do Thursday and Friday afternoons and Saturday. To get the wood cut, split, and transported to three places--the lady's porch (she's hooking up a wood heater to supplement her propance heat this winter), to Claude's house, and to our house.

Cutting wood takes me back a lot of decades to when I used to help my younger uncle Troy cut wood for granddad Dyer's house. We had to cut kindling, small stuff for the cookstove, medium stuff for the wood heaters, splits about 2 feet long for the fireplace, and cut the limbs about 6 or 8 feet long to go under the sorghum syrup cooking pan.

Lonesome Dove Parade, Karnes City, Texas

Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove was a great book, and a great miniseries on television, too. It's also a parade and festival in Karnes City, Texas. In the picture above, that's my middle son Nathan in full sunglasses bandmaster marching mode...reminds me SO much of his old band director from Oconee County, GA.

And at the festival, granddaughter Brenna was showing off the new UGA cheerleader outfit that her mom bought for her in Athens on their recent trip. It was also great to read on Nathan's blog how many friends were there on their front porch and lawn to watch the parade go by.

Maybe the KC band will somehow get invited to the parade for the UGA bowl game this year (or some year soon!) Meantime I just wanted to share these two images grabbed from Kayla and Nathan's blogs.

More Brenna pix--can't get enough!

Both worn out? Yup!
This is how your hair looks when G-Daddy's left in charge.

Crazy Brenna time//Crazy G-daddy time!

Pictures, we got pictures

Until I learn to do a photo album and slideshow, I'll add photos by "main strength and awkwardness."

The photo above is Brenna just getting ready to explore the old library supplies and tools left behind in G-daddy's office when Mamaw moved to Milledgeville...
Whoo! That stuff is scary!
Let's read Veggie Tales!
Another book addict in the family!

Great weekend with Brenna

Debbie and I got to have Brenna, our 29-month old granddaughter, for a visit this weekend, without her parents. We were a little worried that she might not react well to being away from both parents, but she did great!

This photo is her being silly (well, so was I.) We were dropping her off at the Neals' home in Comer, where her mom Kayla is staying this week to help with the Neals' baby Elijah. I asked her if she wanted to 'ride high'--that's what her dad calls being ridden on his shoulders.

The other day, she asked to 'ride high' as we were leaving the grocery store, and Debbie had to explain what she meant. But tonight, she wouldn't get onto my shoulders when I lifted her up. She put both legs on top of my head. Then she tried to slide down my back, which is when Debbie snapped this photo.

But the dismount was a graceful full forward somersault, so all ended well. More photos later!