Second Update with pics -- A unique wood pile problem and the plans for a Canadian Thanksgiving week

[lowroadacres]

So I read of many of you struggling as to where to put wood stacks or in dealing with loved one's not wanting wood stacked up on your yard in certain places. How is it then that I am getting flack from my MIL who lives on our acreage but she is not wanting me to split and move a large stack of rounds by her house.

She likes the look of it there, it gives her backyard privacy from her house. How in the world am I supposed to get around this one? I will be splitting it and restacking it in a line where it will, for now, be stacked up in such a way as to make her happy.

We have also left a long row of corn stalks on the garden parallel to the wood pile to give her more privacy for the winter.

It is an issue this weekend because I am picking up the monster splitfire from a rental store to get at three different large piles of wood this weekend.

Some is for late this winter, some is for sale, and a good chunk is for 2011-12 burning season.

I will get pics of the splitter in action. It is a steal of a deal with it being a three day weekend all for the one day rental price.

 

[Danno77]

lol, a row of corn isn't gonna do much for privacy by the time you get to mid january! Save yourself some headaches and build her a fence.

 

[lowroadacres]

The fence will come. It is more of a mental thing for her as until recently she and the FIL lived a long ways from a town of any size and they had a very sheltered yard. She will be fine in fact she is excited about helping with the wood splitter.

My inlaws have actually adjusted incredibly to our "rurban" lifestyle on the edge of a small city. They went from having thousands of acres and complete privacy to sharing a yard, living on a paved road and being within a stone's throw of malls, busyness, and noise.

We are blessed in that they made a move when they could, not when they had to.

 

[lowroadacres]

So here we have the splitfire monster... At least to me it is a splitting monster compared to anything I have used in the past. Granted it is isn't a long list of splitters as the only other hydraulic splitters I have used are a smaller splitfire and a tiny Wallenstein.

Enjoy the pics from day one of our thanksgiving weekend. We started yesterday with one large stack of older Box elder rounds and 2 large piles of rounds (one of Ash and one of mixed woods). We got done the large stack of Box Elder and we are now into the Ash and the mixed wood. The challenge at the moment is trying to stay organized as we split to not box ourselves in while we also keep the wood separate. I am no where near having a spreadsheet for the wood but I am considering marking each pile once stacked to show the date we split it for reference if and when we ever get a moisture meter.

More pics to come as be battle through the weekend.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Lowroad, that is a lot of splitting and I'm amazed that you apparently did it all wrong! Splitting is best done vertically and not horizontally.


Somehow I can relate to the story about the in-laws. One time, a long time ago, my wife and I did try living in a village and it about drove us nuts. We made it about 2 months and that was it. It is just so much better out in the country and the privacy is super. Heck, I can pee just about anywhere on our place and not offend a neighbor. Of course it helps a lot living on a dead end road and living in the woods. On the farm, it is nice having so many acres and one gets very used to being alone and most love it.

How long will my wife and I be able to live out here by ourselves? I really don't know but I pray to God that we will never have to move into a town, village or city. We would much rather live out our lives out here in the country.

 

[lowroadacres]

That is where the blessing comes in for us all. My in-laws are at an age where they could see the writing on the wall about health care and needing some extra help here and there so it took them about four years to get to the point where they were able to part with their remote farmyard.

Because we live on acreage they get the best of all worlds as do we. We garden together, work on year together, we can assist them with issues that require our help like with doctors occasionally and our kids/their grandkids get incredible interaction.

The way they designed their manufactured home is such that they will not have to move out of it unless they truly get into health troubles beyond our ability to assist them. We are looking forward to them being with us for a long time to come.

 

[lowroadacres]

We didn't get the job completely done because I refused to burn myself out this weekend.

The other thing that kept me from finishing was one of the best football games I have watched in years. Our Blue Bombers of the CFL came back from a 22-11 deficit in the second half to win 46-32 in Overtime.

Excuses Excuses. I will run the machine for another hour in the morning before I return it before work.

Now the fun of stacking begins. Then we can put the tape measure on it. I am also hoping to do some moving of stacks to refine the process of loading into the house.

 

[thewoodlands]

Lowroadacres nice work, good deal kicking back and watching the game. It's that time of year with baseball,football and hockey games going on. How much wood do you think you have?


zap

 

[lowroadacres]

For this winter we are around the 7 cord mark in total cut and split with 6 already stacked.

From this weekend alone I am going to lowball the guess at around 8 cords that we split through.

Some of it was up to four year old Box elder rounds that are way drier than I thought that they would be.

We start stacking tomorrow. In fact the MIL wants to do this for her exercise this week. The kids and I will also be on it. Most of the wood we split this weekend is for 2011-12 season, especially the huge pile of ash.

We will put a tape on the whole thing when it is all stacked and let our the forum know.