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[MScott]

Growing up (err, getting older) between my 6 brothers and our dad, we chopped 15 cord of wood every year.  Half of it went to my uncle who told my dad that he could have all the firewood he wanted from his land as long as we chopped his winter's supply also.  All seven of us had chainsaws, mauls and wedges.  Dad would take a week off from work while us kids were out for school vacation and spend Monday through Saturday in the woods.  We didn't have a wood splitter back then, WE were the wood splitters with mauls and wedges.  We'd have 2 of us working as team; one perpendicular to other, alternating swings.  I believe elm is one of the worse trees to split whether it be with a maul and wedges or a hydraulic unit, one would have to work hard to get it split.  When my schoolmates would argue with their parents to stay up late, it was not an issue in our house, you were so dang tired you wanted to go bed.  When 6:00am arrived, you were out of bed to start another day outdoors.  Roger     

This thread made me think about wood piling and lessons learned the hard way. Back when I was a young lad of 8 or 9 it was the job of myself and my younger brother to stack the wood my father had cut and split. Being young boys, there were many things that we would have preferred to be doing rather than piling wood, so our first priority was to get it done as quickly as possible so we could do fun things. Needless to say, we took little care in stacking the wood, certainly not making sure that each piece was firm and solid before moving on. This seemed OK until the next morning when we found the entire pile had fallen over. So that day was spent clearing the fallen wood and re stacking it in a new pile which was far more work than the first time. It didn't take a brain surgeon to realize that a bit more care in how each stick was placed would save us a lot of time in the long run so after a couple of repeats we became much better and more careful about how a row of wood is stacked. Those lessons are still remembered more than 60 years later.

[Goat Herder]

My farm came with an outdoor wood furnace, three years now, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the farm, from cutting wood, stoking the stove morning and evening, already looking with sadness to the upcoming day when I let the fire go out for the summer.