Spent the last few days splitting the rest of the firewood for the season. A friend was kind enough to bring up a 1/2 truck load from Rossville, already split and seasoned. My mom had a pretty large section of an old oak down, so I cut it up and brought it home to be split. I also was able to get about 1/4 cord of maple from another large limb that was down in her yard. Splitting wood is pretty physical work. I learned a few things while going about it this week. First, make sure the logs are not much longer than 18" before splitting. When cutting with the chainsaw, make your cuts straight so that the wood will stand on end when it's time to split. I was able to borrow a maul from a neighbor, which made the job go pretty smooth. Stay safe when splitting by using a chopping block of sufficient height for your body. Using the maul, get an idea of the distance between you and the log. Always bring the maul up in the air and straight down. Don't go to the side as it can make you miss the target. This can damage your maul or cause the log to go flying in one direction. Make sure kids, animals and other items are clear of your splitting zone.
I had a close call that could have caused some damage to my wrist. One piece of a log went flying off to my right and landed on the top edge of a metal table end. What happened was a bit like what would happen if you stepped on the end of a landscaping rake....the handle comes flying at your face. Well, this table end levered towards me with great speed. Luckily the handle of the maul took the brunt of the force and my wrist was spared. Just a bit closer and it would have broke my wrist.
Now that it's split, just need to wait on the chimney cleaner to come and give us the go ahead. Can't wait to burn on cold winter nights!
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