Fall Firewood

Friday night I found myself on the concrete pad of the driveway at the existing house in 40° and drizzling rain while I assembled two 10 foot long Woodhaven firewood racks which I purchased through Amazon.com. They're a bit pricey, but seem to be incredibly well made and very sturdy. Despite the cold, they actually went together very easily. They only required two 7/16"  wrenches. It took me about an hour to assemble both racks.

The next day was Saturday. It was a beautiful 48°, clear and sunny when we stepped out of the car onto the leaf covered grounds at GreenOak Farm. There was definitely a nip of fall in the air. The remaining 2 Ash trees, which we have elected to treat for emerald ash borer, flamed magnificent shades of yellow, gold and scarlet red. The low angle of the sun in the morning made them glow. I had to snap a photograph with my iPhone.

Previously, Tom had come and cut down most of the trees around the existing house and left the trunks near the residual stumps. We have two large ash trunks, two maple trunks, and a pin oak trunk which we will attempt to preserve over the winter so that they can be moved to a local sawmill and turned into lumber for our new home. The branches and leaves have been chipped, shredded, and hauled to the back. They now sit in a pile to be composted. They will eventually form the brown matter in the soil that will become our orchard.

Our friend Barb was there with a chainsaw and a log splitter We began the hard work of cutting up the trees and splitting them with the hydraulic splitter. I tried to be especially careful, given that I earn my living with my hands, and a gasoline powered hydraulic log splitter would be unforgiving. Fortunately, we had no injuries all day. Janet, running the wheelbarrow, managed to keep up with me and cart the split logs over to the southern edge of the property, stacking them neatly in the racks which I assembled on Friday evening.

We had planned on 3 to 4 hours of hard work. We ended up spending 5. At the end of the day, we had filled both racks, and had enough probably for two more racks. That is for another day. Nevertheless, it was a labor well worth it. We actually have the better part of 2 chords of wood all neatly stacked to be seasoned so that it can be burned in the fireplace or in a fire pit to be constructed behind the house.