This morning I was afraid that I got up at 8 am. I know that is sleeping in for some, and compared to my weekday rising, it is later. However, I don't want to imagine that 8 am ever feels late. It turned out that a book was blocking my view of the alarm clock and it was almost 9 am. Much better!
Tom had already suggested that we work together on the wood pile/wood porch today because it was going to be sunny, so I woke up and fixed a hearty breakfast of eggs, fake chorizo, potatoes and green chiles, etc. It may have been a little too hearty, since we didn't have a chance to digest before donning our work clothes over several warm layers.
I tried to stock as much of the wood in the porch next to the fireplace, leaving the porch nearly empty. I dumped the ashes in the compost and swept up all the bark and debris out of the porch. It was ready to be refilled, but most of the pile was under snow. Tom pulled out a few pallets to re-stack the wood. We were able to clear a lot of the snowy stuff to reveal the drier wood in the middle. As we walked around the pile, we had to bend over to pick up the wood. We were actually towering over our pile! It seemed hard to believe we had burned up that much wood! As we continued through the layers, I saw layers and layers of wood under the snow level. Crazy!
I needed to change gears, so I grabbed the ax and began swinging. My first piece took several tries to make a dent. Thomas suggested a better hand position, and then I started splitting the wood with no problem. (Usually when we fell a tree, we just "block" it into the right length and load up the trunk in 12 - 16" rounds. These were what I was splitting.) It was a lot of fun to see the wood split apart, and I am glad to know I can do it. I still think the power splitter is a lot easier, of course, but maybe my arms won't jiggle so much if I keep it up!
Anyway, that was most of the day. I had to work this afternoon at a couple of trainings in Angel Fire - 75 minutes of training, 165 minutes of driving...yuck! Now I am off to bed, so I can get up early for work again...
Tom had already suggested that we work together on the wood pile/wood porch today because it was going to be sunny, so I woke up and fixed a hearty breakfast of eggs, fake chorizo, potatoes and green chiles, etc. It may have been a little too hearty, since we didn't have a chance to digest before donning our work clothes over several warm layers.
I tried to stock as much of the wood in the porch next to the fireplace, leaving the porch nearly empty. I dumped the ashes in the compost and swept up all the bark and debris out of the porch. It was ready to be refilled, but most of the pile was under snow. Tom pulled out a few pallets to re-stack the wood. We were able to clear a lot of the snowy stuff to reveal the drier wood in the middle. As we walked around the pile, we had to bend over to pick up the wood. We were actually towering over our pile! It seemed hard to believe we had burned up that much wood! As we continued through the layers, I saw layers and layers of wood under the snow level. Crazy!
I needed to change gears, so I grabbed the ax and began swinging. My first piece took several tries to make a dent. Thomas suggested a better hand position, and then I started splitting the wood with no problem. (Usually when we fell a tree, we just "block" it into the right length and load up the trunk in 12 - 16" rounds. These were what I was splitting.) It was a lot of fun to see the wood split apart, and I am glad to know I can do it. I still think the power splitter is a lot easier, of course, but maybe my arms won't jiggle so much if I keep it up!
Anyway, that was most of the day. I had to work this afternoon at a couple of trainings in Angel Fire - 75 minutes of training, 165 minutes of driving...yuck! Now I am off to bed, so I can get up early for work again...
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