Dad's wood

Unable to pass the DOT physical due to heart issues, my father retired in the mid '90's. This was his last rig, an '86 KW and 48' flatbed.



He quickly got bored, had a Quadrafire 5100 insert installed in the large brick hearth fireplace in the basement of a 2700 sqft ranch. He bought a few piles of wood from a few farmers, but most of what he has collected has been just good old free & sweat labor.

Here's a shot of his stash. Something to the tune of 35 cord. My lady in the pic is 5'4" for reference.

Now that is inspiring! Wow would I love to have that in my backyard, good for him!

Oh yeah, he's 78 and has collected the majority of that over the last 10 yrs. He rotates what he's burning each season.

Nice rig and nice stack! Also nice use of the tarps from the flat bed!

Amazing amount of wood!

God Bless him for being able to C/S/S that amount of wood at his age....awesome

Wow... That is amazing.

What an accomplishment....

Thanks for sharing

C/S/S 35 cord of wood. So much for the heart condition the DOT doc said he had forcing him to retire from that sweet KW.

and I thought my 25 cord was something.....WOW. I like your old man already!
Good on him for collecting all that wood, and for staying at it at age 70. I hope I'm in HALF that shape when I hit that age...

He's my hero! Please send an autographed photo!

That's what I was thinking! The man can still get it done!

Very impressive!

DOT not passing him may have been the best thing ever for him? Thats alot of good exercise!

That's a lotta wood!

The only thing I can think is the wood in the middle is never gonna season. I had wood stacked 5 rows deep that never seasoned I can't imagine what that stack will take.

I have dreams of having that much wood at my disposal! Your Dad is amazing!

That's----alotta-wood
Tax free $$

Money in the bank.
Nice Kenworth.

Oviously, the pile got way bigger than it was ever intended to be. He tunnels into it from a different spot each season, re-fills that area and burns a different section next season.

Those pics are from south central PA, about 1/2 way between Harrisburg and Baltimore, lots of farm country.

There was a nasty wind storm around there in Nov '11 that blew down an 80 year old read oak that was 44" diameter at the base. It was located in a town park / picnic area. He inquired about it at town hall and wound up giving a $100 dollar donation to the general fund for permission to cut some firewood. 6 weeks later he had taken 36 "massive" loads home in his Z-71. Mom, my bro (PA Nat'l Guard) and my nephew helped. The local newspaper did a front page story on him. My girl mounted and framed the article. We gave it to him last June for his birthday when we had the family get together in CT at my place.

The very ironic thing about the whole story: Dad had 16 siblings and at one time in the late 30's he lived in a tent in the very same woods where that tree stood.

Good for him keeping busy and I'll bet he has enjoyed it.

For some odd reason it seems most folks think when a man gets a bit older he just doesn't do any work or is active hardly at all. Not so! Your father is just one more example of what older people can do. I also remember the last time we had some lumber sawed, the fellow who has the mill at the time was 76 years old. He worked a decent 8-10 hour day sawing lumber. I remember also when he had to stop to chop a knot off because it was too big to go through the mill. He swung that double bit axe as well as any 30 year old man could.

That's just BOSS!

Thanks for sharing that story.

I just came into a large score & went to scope it out today

A guy who used to be a mechanic at my work has 180 acres and had some logging done in late '11

This particular field is 35 acres of seasoned tops, free for the taking and only 20 miles from me.

Pics taken from the roof of a Cat D-9 sized dozer:

Lots of tops there and most look pretty small. As for the "seasoned tops" sorry, that is not seasoned. By seasoned we are talking about drying and that stuff don't dry much at all until cut to firewood length. Not sure if you'll have much to split there.

Have you considered selling it to someone with a chipper?