Thursday 26 March 2009

Every year again - preparing of firewood

Some of my blogger friends suggested to go on with some more chapters about my travels in far away lands. Well, I'll do this, but not right now.

Life being as it is, each winter I have to buy and prepare firewood. And this job keeps me busy outside, not much time left for computering or blogging.

Here is the description how I proceed. Enters Mr. Bornet who supplies the tree trunks in lengths of 2 meters,(about 7 feet or 3 yards - and here the 100 Dollar question: is there any chance the US-Americans decide to switch over to meters and liters, to square meters and cubic meters like nearly everyone else on our planet Earth? Even the English did so, though reluctantly, I admit.

We need about 16 m3 (cubic meter) of firewood per year and sorry, I am unable to compute this into cubic feet. This batch is for the Winter 2010/11, so as to enable the logs to dry peacefully.

To see the video, don't click on the photo, click on the writing under the pic.



Have a look, please. May I present you Mr. Bornet. If ever someone comes here to settle permanently, this is the guy to approach for firewood. Admire how he handles his grapnel. He is really a wizard with this contraption and could draw you a tooth with this in no time. He told me it took him 6 weeks to handle those eight levers correctly. Having done the job, see how he manages to drive backwards. The video ends when he disappears behind the house. But that is only half of the distance. He has to circle round our cherry tree, go down the lane and reach the street by passing the gate, leaving only about 15 to 20 cm (half a foot) on each side.

Three cheers to Mr. Bornet, king of precision backwards driving.


Chapter too

To see the video, don't click on the photo, click on the writing under it!!



Now I have to get busy with my chain saw to cut those trunks into lengths of 50 cm (about 1 1/2 feet). Tiresome job, nevertheless, because some of the trunks are really heavy and I have to move them out of the sawing area first and then to my log splitting machine. The sawing area behind me must be free so that I can jump backwards at a seconds' notice when the log heap suddenly decides to collapse or to crumble, whatever you prefer, anyway, kind of garden avalanche. Bad for health.

Well, right now, all this is just beginning. One of the next posts will show my wonderful log splitter and the self-made-high-rise-log-wall. Great things to come. Stay tuned everybody and try to remain interested in non political slightly boring subjects.