One of our priority fall projects is to lay in a big supply of firewood. There's nothing like being out shoveling snow all day and coming in to a warm lodge with a nice fire going in the wood stove. Keeping Jennifer at or near her comfort zone is also very important for marital tranquility.
Jen joined me on one of rare dry days we had in October. I had scouted out a few logs I wanted to get, but rough water in Chatham Strait changed our plans. We went instead to one of the bights that is actually inside Warm Springs Bay and was protected from the strong northerlies.
On the beach, I take a hammer to check the condition of any log that looks good. If it rings, it's good wood. If it thunks, we leave it right where it is.
Some logs are small enough that I can roll them down the beach with a peavey.
If they're too big, I tie a line around the log so I can pull it off the beach with the skiff when the tide gets high enough.
These logs are ready to go--I'm just throwing the tow lines into the skiff. When I have all the lines on logs, Jen will come in and pick me up.
We pull the logs into the water one at a time.
When the logs are all floating, we tie them to a bridal on the stern of the skiff and start the long, slow tow for home.
Towing logs is a lot like herding cats--they usually want to go a different direction than you want to go. We had a lot of trouble with the big log on the left--we finally cut it loose and just took the others in after doing two long slow 360's. We came back for it after dropping the other logs off at the lodge. We had to tie it alongside the skiff to be able to tow straight.
I like to get back to the lodge just before high tide.
That allows me to get the towlines up by the woodshed and pull the logs up as much as possibble before the outgoing tide leaves them high and dry.
This was a good day of logging on a nice high tide!
If the tide's not high enough to float the logs to the woodshed, I use a chainsaw winch (you can see it next to the big plank in the photo) to pull the logs up the beach. In the good old days, my back didn't mind carrying the rounds by hand (or should we say by back) up to be split, but those days are gone.
Bucking up logs before the tide comes back in.
Splitting rounds with a maul.
The wood stack fell over three times until Jen came out and helped me do it right. The only thing more fun than stacking wood once is stacking it 4 times!
We had a stretch of nice dry weather in late November and were able to get the tarps off and the wood nice and dry. We're running out of places to stack it, so I'm sure we'll have enough now for the winter. Good thing too, as the weather is supposed to get colder in a few days with snow in the forecast. Life is good!
One of our priority fall projects is to lay in a big supply of firewood. There's nothing like being out shoveling snow all day and coming in to a warm lodge with a nice fire going in the wood stove. Keeping Jennifer at or near her comfort zone is also very important for marital tranquility.
Jen joined me on one of rare dry days we had in October. I had scouted out a few logs I wanted to get, but rough water in Chatham Strait changed our plans. We went instead to one of the bights that is actually inside Warm Springs Bay and was protected from the strong northerlies.
On the beach, I take a hammer to check the condition of any log that looks good. If it rings, it's good wood. If it thunks, we leave it right where it is.
Some logs are small enough that I can roll them down the beach with a peavey.
If they're too big, I tie a line around the log so I can pull it off the beach with the skiff when the tide gets high enough.
These logs are ready to go--I'm just throwing the tow lines into the skiff. When I have all the lines on logs, Jen will come in and pick me up.
We pull the logs into the water one at a time.
When the logs are all floating, we tie them to a bridal on the stern of the skiff and start the long, slow tow for home.
Towing logs is a lot like herding cats--they usually want to go a different direction than you want to go. We had a lot of trouble with the big log on the left--we finally cut it loose and just took the others in after doing two long slow 360's. We came back for it after dropping the other logs off at the lodge. We had to tie it alongside the skiff to be able to tow straight.
I like to get back to the lodge just before high tide.
That allows me to get the towlines up by the woodshed and pull the logs up as much as possibble before the outgoing tide leaves them high and dry.
This was a good day of logging on a nice high tide!
If the tide's not high enough to float the logs to the woodshed, I use a chainsaw winch (you can see it next to the big plank in the photo) to pull the logs up the beach. In the good old days, my back didn't mind carrying the rounds by hand (or should we say by back) up to be split, but those days are gone.
Bucking up logs before the tide comes back in.
Splitting rounds with a maul.
The wood stack fell over three times until Jen came out and helped me do it right. The only thing more fun than stacking wood once is stacking it 4 times!
We had a stretch of nice dry weather in late November and were able to get the tarps off and the wood nice and dry. We're running out of places to stack it, so I'm sure we'll have enough now for the winter. Good thing too, as the weather is supposed to get colder in a few days with snow in the forecast. Life is good!
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