And what might this mean?

I have a feeling blogger is about to sod up page layouts, but let's try to post anyway. Actually this should have been posted yesterday, but a bug in blogger for Android that was present a couple of years ago hasn't gone away, where trying to add a photo to a post from phone storage crashes the app. You can take a picture & add it, but not use one off the internal memory, so I'm a day late, posing from a PC.

So I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK. Chris said I should title this blogging about logging.

A few years back a neighbour in the village took down some trees and we acquired the logs, thus having stored them since they are nicely seasoned and presently dry. Naturally they weren't conveniently stove-sized logs, but hey, what would life be without a challenge?

Naturally one remembers to take pictures part-way through a job of work, but here's the log-store area. :p

The chain saw hasn't been run since autumn last year, so having checked necessary fluids were present I gave it some choke and pulled the chord.

Who knew a starter handle could bite? My ankle is still slightly swollen >24 hours later, though I did manage to run on it this evening.

It was mid-afternoon when I started work, and I didn't want to run out of steam too badly. Also Chris has a nasty cold, and was basically out of service all weekend, so no help stacking the logs as she would normally do. So I got about half the logs cut in the end, and have filled a lot of our log storage space.

There're something wonderful about the smell of fresh-cut wood, and although this is probably only larch, it still smelled great, mingled with rose scent (and not sweat, as suggested by a colleague).There's also something amazing about using a chainsaw for cutting, the way it just slides through the timber gradually making a slot in the work. Then there's the odd sensation of a warm stream of fragrant shavings spraying against my bare lower legs and rapidly filling my shoes with prickly bits of wood. In the days of the old homelite, the shavings would also be distinctly oily, due to a slightly generous setting for the chain lube pump, and ones clothes would smell of chain saw oil and wood dust.

There was also a little resistance in the next stage.

The wood was very dry and generally split easily, however some logs were a little knotty. With these the successful technique was generally to get the axe hanging behind my back, then bring it forwards as fast as possible at full arms length, aiming for a point a few inches inside the centre of the log. In this case there were some internal knots running across the log, and it took the first blow without even showing a serious crack. The log below is a different one, but it quickly gave in.

So we shouldn't be cold this winter, at least, not if we have to rely on log burning. The log store area in the shed is full, and the external log store is half full. I may try to finish off the rest next weekend, and see if I can make enough space in the shed to store the excess timber.