Chapter 691

July 23, 2025

Firewood

free energy

I have split a bunch of firewood for Colleen as she trys to avoid to high cost of electric home heating. I gave up personally using firewood years ago but now I'm splitting more than I ever did in my life. This pile resulted from a neighbor who walks their Golden Retriever down our street. He has hundreds of acres of trees and with many Ash trees that died from the Emerald Ash Borer insect disease, thus already dried and seasoned. He brought the 8 foot log lengths down on his pickup truck and hand unloaded them. I bucked them up to 16 inch fireplace size before splitting. We've since shared a few meals and dog visitations.

I do recall back at our Virgil home getting loads of slab wood chunks from some sawmill ( near the big hill or Daisey Hollow ?) that was cheap or free that we burned in the furnace. There was a big bin in the corner of the cellar that we filled up ( I helped as maybe 5-10 years old) before converting to pea coal, then fuel oil then back to wood at the end.

I had picked up a used cheap $120 electric hydraulic splitter on Facebook Marketplace and it works awesomely. It could handle the free Red Oak that I picked up from Facebook Marketplace. A guy was getting rid of some trees a few miles from home and had stacked the bucked up rounds at curbside. He even came and helped me load up the big pieces, glad to get rid of it. Went back there a few times afterwards when he had more.

Did I mention this was during the 90 degree heatwave and the black flies were annoying. You find free wood when it's available.

Had borrowed the old loud no muffler gas hydraulic splitter from a neighbor but the coupling gear was misaligned and it broke down.

Here was some oak and maple that I picked up a mile from home on the side of the road after the County did some right of way clearing. They told me it was free for the taking. I believe that generally it's legal to do so anywhere but not entirely sure.

You can't not take it.  Came back the next day for more but some another scavenger had taken the rest of the logs.

Before getting our own splitter I tried some slow wedge work and the splitting maul. Used to use the maul for years but it hurts my back now. Aquired a couple peaveys cheap from a logger in the Adirondacks from Facebook Marketplace. He was on a trip down to my area so we made the deal. It's a hundred year old Snow & Nealley from Bangor Maine hometown of the original Joseph Peavey company. We had used these in the log rolling competition at Forestry School in yesteryear so I wanted to have one to handle big pieces even though I had to  refinish it.

The wood stacks make a great place for the Easter Bunny to hide eggs from grandkids Lucas, Hazel and Violet.

Got Lucas to do some stacking as just before he graduated from elementary school. Big kid - 95 percentile.

Sometimes we can cut our own 30 foot standing dead Red Spruce for immediate firewood.

I was going shopping when I saw this wood by the right of way. Asked the guy in the house if it was free and he came out and helped me load it up.  Bucked up with the 70's vintage Stihl German chainsaw I acquired after Dad passed.

Going back in time a bit farther, Dad was fond of his Stihl chainsaw. Out back cutting up some old seasoned logs Locust, Beech, etc for his homemade wood stove in his retirement years. Believe it's the same saw I have.