Trials & Tribulations of Wood Burning...

[Shari]

Interesting day yesterday.

I had to dig out the trail from the snow bank in order to haul wood yesterday. The helper wheel was buried in about 4" of ice so had to jack up the trailer to free the wheel. Receiver is the old style 4-sided wheel - it was froze tight! I finally just put a split under the helper wheel after jacking up the trailer, hooked up the chains from trailer to truck and pulled ever so slowly to get the trailer out of the snow bank to get it on the driveway where I could continue to work on tipping up the helper wheel and freeing the receiver from their respective ice-bound conditions. Repeat same process for the boat/trailer because they were in the way of where the stacking would take place. Fun!

Son, hubby & I hauled in 5 loads of hardwood. One more load to go for today. Our trailer is only 4'x6' but I still figure we moved around 1-1/2+/- cord yesterday.

Moving the rounds was interesting considering it was either froze to the ground because of the recent sleet or the rounds were simply frozen together because of the sleet. It was also slippery in the hands and for some dumb reason I wasn't wearing my steel toed shoes (missed the toes all day though!).

Probably because of the ice on the rounds, on load 4 we lost a round to the road. It bounced nicely - six cars missed it before son jumped out to retrieve it. That is exactly one reason I do not haul wood after dark.

While stoking up the stove upon arrival at home I dropped a split on my bare left foot. Picked up the foot in pain and placed my right palm on the stove top for balance. Yes, the stove was hot.

Today we go back for the last load. I think I prefer moving wood when there is no snow.

Yes, I know, pictures or it didn't happen:

Above is 2 rows deep x 4' tall x 8' long.

Above is 8' long x almost 2 rows deep plus the end section, to the center of picture, is/will be 2 rows deep x 4' tall x 4' long plus todays load which will be a face cord (1/3 cord) additional.

Shari

(Oh, pooh! Meant to post in the Wood Shed - Mod please move.)

 

[oldspark]

Time for a drink Shari, glad your day was not any worse than it was. Maybe we could start a thread titled "Worse thing that happened to me do to woodburning".

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Well Shari, some days go like that for most of us.

Those are some pretty good sized rounds you have in that stack. Even some of the splits are big. Hope they burn okay for you.

 

[PapaDave]

Where's the pic of your left foot? :ahhh:
How's the hand? I hope it didn't get burned too bad.

 

[BrotherBart]

Hope that hand and foot heal up OK.

But dang it I repeat:

"The first lesson is to never open the stove door without the gloves on. Any number of surprises can and will happen inside or outside of the stove. And reflexes being what they are they can get ya hurt."

 

[Shari]

Hope that hand and foot heal up OK.

But dang it I repeat:

"The first lesson is to never open the stove door without the gloves on. Any number of surprises can and will happen inside or outside of the stove. And reflexes being what they are they can get ya hurt."

That's kind of funny: I didn't even have the door open yet - I was just bringing some wood to the stove. The hand is doing okay, just very, very red with even deeper red but not even a blister. The foot, well, caught it right on the top of the arch - black & blue circle about 2+ inches diameter.

We just got back from picking up the last load and have it stacked. That's it - no more room for anything but boy are we going to have a splitting party when the snow is gone. I would guess I have around 4+ cord of rounds... just waiting... for warmer weather. First we had a blizzard two weeks ago. Then we had a major thaw. Then we had rain/sleet/snow. The yard looks so innocent but under the fresh snow I know there a areas of 'ice drifts' which are just awful ankle twisters.

 

[GAMMA RAY]

Shari, make sure you put something on that hand so it will heal properly. I got a terrible burn on my hand when we got the 13....It still looks angry....One of my patients asked me today "what on earth did you do to your hand"? I simply replied....new wood stove.....

 

[Lucy]

Had a little laugh about your left foot injury. I was at our cottage this weekend, opened the upright freezer digging around for chicken brests when a 5 lb. roast fell out on my left foot. I hobbled around for the rest of the long weekend. The good news was I sat in the easy chair for two days and my husband did all the wood stove duties. At least you accomplished something before your injury. In future I may use steel toed boots before freezer digging.

 

[yooperdave]

sorry about your injuries-but its a good feeling to have all the wood home, right?
now-about that trailer...sounds like it was overloaded or "arch loaded" a bit too high...or is it a flat bed trailer?? (in which case, it shouldn't be used for hauling wood, period.) how else could a round fall off and have 6 vehicles avoid it before you retrieved it??? the trailer shouldn't be loaded higher than the side walls-ever-unless you have a cargo net or heavy cover of some sort to avoid such a problem as wood falling off. i wonder if any fell off that you didn't see?? just sayin-

now,get going on that splittin