Sunday Reading - Winters Alot of Work

I had planned on finishing up the chapter in my fiction I had been working on for today but this snowstorm kinda set me back a bit. The temps rose today into at least the upper 30's if not lower 40's but with all the melting snow it was really too muddy to attempt any wood cutting. I have a few small trees here and there I could have cut up but I went ahead and decided to split a load instead.

There were several large chunks of trees already loaded up on the truck because I had put them there for weight yesterday. Mostly these were the last remains of trees I cut down last year and even one from the year before. Big, massive trunks from tree varieties that like to fork low and early and are a real pain to split. More than a few of them came from other people who burn wood as well.

I have found that most people around here who loudly proclaim they split everything by hand are usually more than happy to offer me a chunk or two of some knot infested old trunk on a fairly frequent schedule. I am always glad to take the thing off their hands as I have yet to find a chunk the splitter couldn't push it's way through. Still even with a splitter these pieces are a bear to man handle until you get them split down to size.

So since it is too wet to cut and I had a good amount of old stuff plus the promise of plenty more big stuff once it dries out, having six big locust trunks waiting,  I decided to jump early this year and split a load. Usually I don't start the splitting process until January but this year has been colder than normal complete with a couple of early storms besides and my ready to burn racks are now about half empty already.

It never ceases to amaze me how fast you can fill a truck bed when splitting wood. Only a couple of big trunk pieces goes a long, long way when you get down to it. I barely made a dent in the stuff I have stacked for splitting, in fact I don't think I got passed the old stuff into even this year's haul yet.

After all that splitting it was time to clean the ashes. I emptied the fourth 7 gallon can out this afternoon into the garden and raised bed area. That is about twice as many ashes as I usually put out by this time.

Between the cold and the extra wood cutting and splitting I have yet to get out and do any work in the shop this year. No reloading or bee box building at all. I really need to get on that soon.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!