Oct 29/30 - how much wood would a woodchuck chuck ...

Yes, that's what I've been doing. Jim Matthews showed up around 9am on Wednesday and we dropped the big hemlock. It was cabled and tensioned to a tree in the direction that we wanted it to fall but unfortunately it decided to go its own way, falling down the slope onto the Crown Land adjacent to our property. It split a maple in half on its way down and other small trees in its way.

So ... then the tree was in an awkward place to cut up. The rest of my day, and I really do mean the rest of my day -- until dark -- was spent cutting the tree into 6-8 foot sections, winching those up the slope using a couple of large pipes as slides, then cutting those pieces into fireplace-sized pieces ready for splitting.

It was a big tree. It was quite late in the afternoon before my 18" chainsaw blade finally was long enough to make a single cut through the trunk. The saw had quite a workout, and, ahem, the saw is not good enough for this kind of work. I under-bought when I purchased this chainsaw. The 45cc motor does not develop enough horsepower for this kind of work. I also chewed through one saw chain -- it jumped off the bar and some of the guides were damaged. I put that chain on time and time again, tensioned it properly and it would not run at full tension -- at less tension it would jump off the bar. I eventually (the next morning) replaced it with a new chain that I had bought at the same time as the saw. I'll have to pick up another spare.

The individual pieces, once cut into 16" sections, were much too heavy for me to lift. The best that I could do was roll them into a group awaiting splitting. This morning Jim came over with the splitter and we made short work of the tree. The biggest of the sections was just under 2 feet across but the log splitter handled it with ease. Not so from our standpoint since it took the two of us to lift each section onto the splitter. I remember reading reviews of log splitters and some of them work either horizontally or vertically -- and apparently the vertical position is easier to manage with large trees.

Speaking of workhorses -- Jim Matthews is amazing. He's just under 70 years old and works as if he was half that age. My back was sore from the first day's work ... the splitting just about did me in ... and then the piling finished me off. 3.5 cords of wood from the one tree -- and there is still more wood to be harvested from the brush -- 2-3" diameter pieces that will be ok for burning. I'll also drop what's left of that maple at some point although Jim figures that it will live for another couple of years anyway. I'll leave it standing for now since that area has been denuded enough. I now need to do some planting on that slope -- something fast growing.

Remember the first hemlock that fell ? That wood, split, was less than a cord -- perhaps 3/4. I decided to drop the remaining piece, about 15 feet high, because I didn't want any carpenter ants that were still in that section to be out setting up new colonies in the spring. That wood, when split, would have brought the total to slightly more than a cord from that tree -- quite a difference -- 3.5+ cords vs 1+ cords. However, when I dropped that section and cut it up the entire center was rotten, leaving only the outer 1.5" at the rim as good wood. I put the pieces on my burn pile. If there are any carpenter ants left inside they will not like my kind of "warm welcome".

Sandy, Stef, Lauren and Mya left for Toronto around 7:45 a.m. Although it's sometimes bedlam when Lauren and Mya get going, especially if Abby joins in, it's an abrupt change to just me. I talked to Sandy mid-day when she was at the St. Lawrence Market after her hair appointment. She was heading back to Stef's shortly thereafter and was then having dinner with Joyce, who lives fairly close to Stef. Sandy has a dentist appointment tomorrow morning and will then head back here.

I may go into Sudbury tomorrow morning to hit Home Depot. I need to find some sort of rivets/clips for the plastic in the X5 wheel well. I don't want to wait until the following weekend to find that I don't have a solution. I would probably go to Costco at the same time. Alternatively I would hold off and go to Mass in Sudbury on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning.

An end-of-day blog instead of early morning -- what's the world coming to ??!!

That's it for now ...