Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Zen and the Art of Wood Splitting

My shoulders ache from all the wood I split, transported and stacked yesterday. It was too much. I need to learn to pace myself better. Linda came out and helped and the shed is starting to fill up.

My readers might not realize all the steps that go into processing a piece of firewood from the one-hundred inch logs delivered on a semi-truck... to having it neatly piled in the wood shed.

First the truck shows up with the logs and dumps them in the backyard.

Then I have to pull the piles apart with a tractor and chain so I can get to the logs.

Now the logs require blocking into chunks that are suitable for splitting. If the log has a big diameter the chunks are cut to shorter lengths to make them more manageable.

The chain saws have to be serviced with a gas/oil mixture and the chains sharpened with a hand file. This is an art onto itself. Each cutting edge has to be filed to a precise angle and the “Rakers” maintained at the proper height. If the chain is dull the vibration that naturally occurs is multiplied and the energy required to cut through a log increases. This translates into shoulder pain in old men doing work their bodies are no longer well suited to perform. If, in the process of cutting a block, the chain on the cutting bar inadvertently touches the ground it immediately goes dull and has to be resharpened. On top of all this, if the log is big, the sheer weight can pinch the bar as the kerf closes from the sagging downward pull of the cut. Often, if the operator is not careful, the saw kicks back into the lower extremities of the woodcutter. (Ouch! Nothing quite describes a blowback into the crotch) There is much more to the blocking function than most people realize.

Once the logs are blocked and laying helter-skelter on the landing I take my tractor with a big bucket and roll the blocks in. These I transport as close to the splitter as I can get.

Now the splitter must be started. Mine won’t start if there is any pressure backed up onto the hydraulic levers. So I give them all a little shake. Then the starting chord has to be pulled and on a twelve HP motor that can be a pain. (Like it was the day the low oil switch cut off the electrical circuit... duh!) Once running the blocks are rolled onto a hydraulic platform that lifts them up onto the I-beam that the Ram attaches to. The right splitting head has to be in place and they weigh about twenty lbs. I have a four way and a six way head. At the end of my splitter is a platform for the split wood and it fills up quickly. As it does new blocks being processed push the old ones onto the ground. This is bad because one has to bend low to pick the overflow and spillage is something to be avoided. When the platform is full of split pieces they are heaved into a prepositioned trailer. This is where the shoulders really suffer.

Next the trailer has to be moved to the shed and backed into the unloading dock. Backing a short trailer requires another unique set of skills. Last the blocks are taken from the trailer and stacked in the shed. This is where Linda helped me yesterday.

It’s plenty of work and the old body lets you know the next day. Still, it’s satisfying to do that sort of work. My father loved to do the wood and would often pull a chair up near a big finished pile and sit there with a look of profound satisfaction.

If you drive around Wisconsin you see plenty of families that have wood stoves, some indoor and some out. Many are so compulsive that each split piece is a uniform size and the stacks are built into almost perfect squares. For myself, I’m reminded of my graduate school professor’s sage comment, “All things worth doing are not worth doing well.” This is a great example of what its taken me the last five blogs to explain.