Filed under: August 2016 | Tags: aging, fishing, friends, hard work, maple syrup, Small Farming, time passes, woodshed
August 8, 2016
The sugarhouse woodshed is finally full to overflowing. What a great problem to have. The woodshed is quite large. It measures sixteen by twenty feet. The eave height is just over seven feet. We pile the wood up even higher in the middle, as we stack between the rafters. This wood will be used to boil our maple sap next spring as we make maple syrup.
Saturday, my buddy and his five sons, my hired man, my grandson and myself spent just over half a day filling this woodshed. My logsplitter performed great! We had to put a new motor on it a couple months ago. We chose a 22 horsepower Honda. The splitter doesn’t even slow down as large pieces are turned into smaller ones. It is fun to watch.
We had a great day. We worked, we laughed and we even fished for a few hours. The day ended with us all laughing, telling stories and eating an ice cream cake from the Dairy Queen. The work was hard, but made easier by all the hands that helped. The young men made me feel old. I used to be the one lifting large pieces and throwing them around defying gravity, but Saturday, I watched as men forty years younger than myself met the challenge.
How can it be? My mind still thinks that I can do everything that I used to do, but my body protests, especially the next day! Where have the years gone? Oh well, I still get all the work done….it just takes me longer as I work smarter, not harder. Of course what works even better is having great friends and young men who look up to me. The sugarhouse woodshed is full. I am full … of gratitude for my friends and family. Thank you.
Filed under: November 2014 | Tags: Community, firewood, Friendship, hard work, little boys
Two hours of work!
November 1, 2014
Today, my Amish friends and their sons showed up to help me reduce a pile of logs to sugarwood. We went at it for two hours. The 10×20 tent provided just enough protection from the rain to make it a great job. We stayed mostly dry. The skid steer brought logs to the tent. Then men with chainsaws cut them to length quickly. Three men on the log splitter made the pieces fly. Five little boys stacked wood like professionals and this job was behind us in record time.
The rain slowed to a misty drizzle after lunch. We decided to buck up a giant tree into logs. The tree blew down a year ago. The horses and I will pull the wood out. We made over twenty logs from the giant limbs. The trunk is still almost five feet across on the small end. The tree has a base measurement of over twelve feet in diameter. The hulking trunk log is mostly hollow, but will take me many hours to reduce it to firewood.
Today, I was reminded of just how a sense of community is a wonderful thing. Friendship is power beyond any ability. We had fun. We worked hard. We accomplished much. I am ahead of my own schedule and all because we trade labor. I worked at different times this summer for my friends. I took machinery and tools along with my knowledge. We finished a few projects at their place…and today it came full circle. I am not only amazed at what a bunch of guys can do… I am humbled!
RicelandMeadows 