Staying Even

 By my calculations, I successfully completed a resolution I made at the beginning of summer, which is a much better track record than any New Year's Resolution I ever made or even thought about making.

My spring resolution was to try to replace the three-and-a-half cords of firewood that I burned last winter, and that would keep me even because someday I will not be able to gather firewood on my own.  

I considered various ways to do that, including buying wood.   However, two things stopped me from doing that:

    1.  The whole idea of burning wood is to save on the high costs of propane that heats my house, and 

    2.  There is a wealth of beetle-killed spruce here, including some in my own yard.

So, I decided to do it on my own, as much as I could.

One thing that was an obstacle was that I no longer have the arm strength to pull the recoil starter rope and successfully start my gas-powered wood splitter.   The solution was to purchase an electric splitter.

I'd already made an age-related adaptation last year when I realized I could no longer start my newish Stihl chainsaw.   The solution was a battery-powered chainsaw and, as luck would have it, they were on sale in Anchorage.   I also wanted a second battery and a spare chain, but discovered it was cheaper to buy two on-sale saws than buying those two items separately.   I came home with two saws, two batteries, and two chains.

I bought a 5-ton electric splitter with a stand in Anchorage, and when my brother came to visit, we put it together.    He is better at following orders (a long career in the Army), while I am better at improvising and turn to the instructions only in emergencies.

Hold down the start button as well as the green lever to move the ram.

He studied the instructions and measured the bolts; I started sticking things together.    Together, we succeeded in getting all the pieces together and did a trial run.

All summer, as I was out along the highway picking up litter, I looked for downed dead spruce that would easy for me to get.   And I found several.

I also cut down two black spruce in my yard and hauled off the slash.    When I went to dump the slash, I scrounged the piles for more wood.

I kept it up all summer.    Finding, sawing, loading, unloading, spitting, and stacking in the wood shed.

The battery-powered saw is on the tailgate.

Just recently, a professional logger cut down two spruce in my yard that I didn't dare to cut.   One might have fallen on the well house; the other would have blocked the driveway.

The last of the rounds to split.   First trailer load is in the woodshed.

I hauled off three loads of slash and stacked the rounds in the carport where I could split them, rain or shine.

Today, I split the majority of the rounds and stacked the wood in the shed.   I have a few more rounds left.

By my calculations, I am more or less at my goal of three-and-a-half cords.