Wife n wood

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My wife helps out too, she mows the lawn.

One day when it was about 90 in the shade and I was sitting on the porch drinking beer watching her mow the lawn, a nosy neighbor came over and said, "Look at your poor wife mowing the lawn in this awful heat while you sit there drinking beer, you should be hung!", to which I calmly replied" I am, thats why she mows the lawn". :)
 
I have done 90% of the cutting, splitting, moving, and stacking myself. My wife has helped a little, but isn't all that interested in doing much of the outside work. My two boys are 3 and 5 and they both like to help, but that only last so long and usually makes things take longer, but hopefully they want to help when they can actually do the work when they get a bit bigger. My mom helped me move some wood a couple weekends ago. I like doing everything except for moving the wood around since our lot is sloped and its a real chore getting the wood up to the stacks.
 
While I do most of the processing of the wood I don't mind at all . . . sometimes my wife helps run the splitter. This is one of the few things that I do almost exclusively . . . perhaps because I find working with wood almost to be therapeutic.

More important to me is the fact that she runs the woodstove with no complaints and between the two of us we keep the house nice and warm all winter long . . .

Now when it comes to other projects around the house . . . well my wife is usually the one who knows a lot more than me on how to get the project done . . . she truly is the brains of the operation when it comes to the renovation . . . I'm just the guy who can carry heavy stuff and risk life and limb by running the saws. ;) :)
 
My wife is a super big help on a lot of things but there are two things she does not do.

1. She will not do any splitting; not coordinated enough and afraid she might come up missing a hand.
2. She will not stack any wood. She is not good at this at all and her stacks would fall over fast. I'll do the stacking, thank you.
 
My wife helps by telling me she cold. My 2 boys do 80% of the stacking
 
The wife loves to work up a sweat with me processing wood. She ask me if I have been cheating on her when see sees a new pile that she didn't get to help with. Unfortunately, she is laid up with a broken collar bone and a torn ACL from falling off her dirt bike last week so it will be awhile before she can help me again.
 

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ISeeDeadBTUs said:
ckarotka said:
The wife helps when "she" wants to, not much help right now being 8 months pregnant.

Pics, or it didn't happen.


BTW, the 12 yo may be quite effective in bringing around 'boundless energy fueled by emerging testoterone' in a few years. . . but you may have to feed them and keep them focused on the work instead of the daughter . . .


I think working around your girlfriends dad whose holding large heavy blunt weights on a stick and chainsaw might just be a great contraceptive, thanks for the idea. Oh and the wife takes horrible pics......see what I mean %-P
 

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ckarotka said:
ISeeDeadBTUs said:
ckarotka said:
The wife helps when "she" wants to, not much help right now being 8 months pregnant.

Pics, or it didn't happen.


BTW, the 12 yo may be quite effective in bringing around 'boundless energy fueled by emerging testoterone' in a few years. . . but you may have to feed them and keep them focused on the work instead of the daughter . . .


I think working around your girlfriends dad whose holding large heavy blunt weights on a stick and chainsaw might just be a great contraceptive, thanks for the idea. Oh and the wife takes horrible pics......see what I mean %-P

Love the "photo." :) :) :) Chuckled a bit with this bit of artistry.
 
Well, absolutely no offense to anyone on this list, but I ("The Wife") do just about all of it myself. Yes, hubby helps, but cutting, splitting and 90% of the stacking is all mine. It's cheaper than a fitness gym membership. :)

Shari
 
Shari said:
Well, absolutely no offense to anyone on this list, but I ("The Wife") do just about all of it myself. Yes, hubby helps, but cutting, splitting and 90% of the stacking is all mine. It's cheaper than a fitness gym membership. :)

Shari
Can't imagine why anybody would be offended. Jealous? Maybe. Not offended, though.

My wife, on the other hand, doesn't help with the firewood, but I've never asked her to. I bet she would. She's pretty athletic, although a little weak in the upper body. I bet she could wield my Fiskars just fine, since it was engineered for girls anyway...
 
Well, Shari, it's time you take one for the team . . .

Pics of the results of this wood-gathering-workout would be used by us to point out the benefits to our wives, thus helping them be healtier. :coolsmile:
 
Bspring said:
The wife loves to work up a sweat with me processing wood. She ask me if I have been cheating on her when see sees a new pile that she didn't get to help with. Unfortunately, she is laid up with a broken collar bone and a torn ACL from falling off her dirt bike last week so it will be awhile before she can help me again.

Bspring, you have a winner there if you can keep her off that bike. Take care of her and you'll have her help for a long time.


Shari, we all admire you and your abilities. The world needs more like you.
 
ISeeDeadBTUs said:
Well, Shari, it's time you take one for the team . . .

Pics of the results of this wood-gathering-workout would be used by us to point out the benefits to our wives, thus helping them be healtier. :coolsmile:

My assumption is you are not asking for pictures of wood. :) Ha! I'm too old to be 'buff' but my sags, bags & wrinkles have starch in them, does that help? :) :) :) PS No photos available. :)

Shari
 
LOL, we're ALL too old . . . why ya think we hang out here? :roll:
 
Shari said:
Well, absolutely no offense to anyone on this list, but I ("The Wife") do just about all of it myself. Yes, hubby helps, but cutting, splitting and 90% of the stacking is all mine. It's cheaper than a fitness gym membership. :)

Shari

Same here.....He just doesn't get the same "enjoyment" out of wood processing that I do. And I agree, it is great excercise!
 
FWIW, you don't really need a lot of upper body strength to split and stack wood. Sure your arms get tired after a while and you'll be sore the next day, but the weight of the axe or whatever you're using is what does the work, and you just do a little more each day. I've got biceps my husband can wrap one entire hand around, but I stacked four cords of wood this weekend all by my lonesome.

I wish *I* had a husband who did all the wood stuff! Except then I'd get bored. =P

~Rose
 
I am quite fortunate in that my wife helps with most of the wood processing. She's not much on splitting or running a chainsaw, but if I cut it up, she will carry it to the truck, unload and stack. She stacks tighter than I do, so our wood piles don't fall over. Her dad loves to come help as well. If I get the both of them out in the woods, it ends up being 2 cord per day processed and stacked.

When we took a mulberry down that was threatening a friend's house last week, she was on the end of the ropes pulling limbs so they cleared the MANY obstacles that were in the way. She also loaded most of the brush on the trailer and wood into the truck while I cut and split. In fact, I believe she is the one that found the F-350 for me on Craigslist in LA.

Think I have a winner.

No pics of wife on internet; I would be processed like a borer killed pine if I did! But here's a pic of the truck, for good measure :), those are her very hands loading wood into the truck boxes!
 

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And all the while I've been putting tools in those boxes and the wood in the back, what was I thinking !
 
Chris S said:
And all the while I've been putting tools in those boxes and the wood in the back, what was I thinking !

Yeah, when we bought the truck, I figured that I would get to put tools in the boxes as well... If I'm lucky, I can command one of the small boxes on the other side for saws and such, and maybe the top "flip top" shallow trays for axes, ropes, and wedges. Even the cooler ends up in the cab! All other capacity MUST be filled with wood, or I don't get to go home. So says "The One Who Must Be Obeyed!" Holds about 1 3/4 cords, though, 12' bed.
 
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