Spent another afternoon chainsawing and moving firewood around, also some brush clearing. I cut up all the oak that got rejected during the winter because it was too long to fit in the stove, so I’ve got some oak to burn again. I also moved all the rest of the wood from the greenhouse to the porch and cut up a few stray pieces that were still outside. So we are just about out of wood, which is what i wanted and, after looking at the wood we had on hand last Fall, what I predicted.
Also cleared brush south of the fence on the southern edge of our property. I didn’t want that area to become completely shaded. A big branch off a box elder had fallen into the farm field, so I cut that and got it out of the way of the farmer.
That land to the south of us is owned by someone who does not live nearby and leased to someone else still who actually farms it. That’s our best hope of adding more land to our property. Although it’s extremely unlikely, I fantasize about buying a strip of land as wide as our property all the way down to the river.
The chainsaw is acting wonky — won’t run at full power unless I let it warm up for a couple of minutes, and even then it’s finicky. I rinsed out the air filter (just a screen) in gasoline, but that didn’t help. The next thing I’m going to do is get new gas. The gas I have is not fresh, and even though it has stabilizer in it, it could have gone bad. Although now that I think about it, it seems like it’s only one year old, which shouldn’t be too bad. If new gas doesn’t fix it, I’ll start fiddling with the mixture. Or maybe I’ll just take it someplace.
I want to fill a trash can with small wood sized appropriately for the twig stove:
and get it under cover so it will dry out and be ready to burn. We do have a ton of brush, a lot of it in the 1-2″ diameter range for which that stove is designed, so it should work well…but I want to get some dried out and test it to make sure.
Anyway, I’m always surprised at how tired I get after cutting wood and moving it around for a few hours. Even though I work out every day, I’m just not used to working on my feet for that long.
Ending and Beginning 