Anyone here cut their own firewood?

This will be the third winter since my father died and I moved in with my mom. My mom chills and insists on using a wood stove to heat our house. It is a modern two-story brick split-level home. It has central heat and air, but when my mom gets a chill she says the air coming out of the registers (electric heat) just is not warm enough.

We live on a 150 acre farm with unlimited access to trees, but unfortunately they are almost all on hillsides. This makes it tough work to get the wood out. I am old and soft from working in an office for years, so I usually just work 2-3 hours at a time cutting wood. But this last Saturday I hired a couple of my cousins sons to help and I wanted to get as much done as possible while I had them. So I ended up working myself way too hard. The chainsaw I have now (Echo 590) is really too big and heavy for trimming. So it wears me out to swing it around for long. Then I worked the pneumatic splitter. A can sit to do this, but it involves moving huge pieces of wood onto the splitter so my entire upper body was hurting.

When I finally finished and went in to shower I could not bend my arms for long to do things like wash my hair without my biceps cramping. I had plans to go to a party Saturday night so I laid down to try and take a short nap about 5:00. When my mom woke me it was close to seven and I could barely walk when I tried to get out of bed.

This is the type of work I used to do on a regular basis when I was younger, but it kills me know. I really need to get back to some form of regular exercise. Either that or start buying all my firewood.

I had to contact my Dr today to see if it was ok to work out and if there was a limit to how hard I pushed it. I have some heart issues which is eventually going to cause surgery and didn't want to push it more than I should. I also work in an office and have the last 21yrs. Getting old and out of shape is easy when we're not getting much exercise except going to lunch and maybe an occasional walk to the copier. That's why I hate honey-do lists. Woman thinks I can work like a 20yr old.

Getting old sucks, but it also has it's perks. I can still get nookie, but them cramps in the legs sure do suck.

First off: Who knew Fred lives in his mom's basement...( I had suspicions)

Secondly: Perhaps purchase mom a kerosene heater and see if that knocks off the chill. We use 2 in the bfine home.

Finally: Check with professional tree cutters. They may pay you (a percentage of what they cut) for the wood

(11-18-2019, 08:05 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Finally: Check with professional tree cutters. They may pay you (a percentage of what they cut) for the wood

Depends on the wood. Maple and oak wood? Good chance. Pine? highly doubtful. Morning wood? Well, depends on the tree cutter. It's Fred, you have to be clear on these things.

(11-18-2019, 08:26 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Depends on the wood. Maple and oak wood? Good chance. Pine? highly doubtful. Morning wood? Well, depends on the tree cutter. It's Fred, you have to be clear on these things.

Well Fred said he was old and soft so we can cancel out morning wood. Also, I'm sure Fred knows this; although the story doesn't read as such, You cannot cut down and split a tree today and put it in the stove tonight. 

(11-18-2019, 05:58 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Anyone here cut their own firewood?

This will be the third winter since my father died and I moved in with my mom.  My mom chills and insists on using a wood stove to heat our house.  It is a modern two-story brick split-level home.  It has central heat and air, but when my mom gets a chill she says the air coming out of the registers (electric heat) just is not warm enough.

We live on a 150 acre farm with unlimited access to trees, but unfortunately they are almost all on hillsides.  This makes it tough work to get the wood out.  I am old and soft from working in an office for years, so I usually just work 2-3 hours at a time cutting wood.  But this last Saturday I hired a couple of my cousins sons to help and I wanted to get as much done as possible while I had them.  So I ended up working myself way too hard.  The chainsaw I have now (Echo 590) is really too big and heavy for trimming.  So it wears me out to swing it around for long.  Then I worked the pneumatic splitter.  A can sit to do this, but it involves moving huge pieces of wood onto the splitter so my entire upper body was hurting.

When I finally finished and went in to shower I could not bend my arms for long to do things like wash my hair without my biceps cramping.  I had plans to go to a party Saturday night so I laid down to try and take a short nap about 5:00.  When my mom woke me it was close to seven and I could barely walk when I tried to get out of bed.

This is the type of work I used to do on a regular basis when I was younger, but it kills me know.  I really need to get back to some form of regular exercise.  Either that or start buying all my firewood.

Yep I've been doing wood since I was old enough to lift a piece onto the wagon. The only time I haven't had to do wood was the 8 years I was stationed in Lousiana and Overseas.


The thing about wood heat is that once you're used to it nothing else compares it really different. I have free natural gas and still heat with wood...even though I have a couple wall heaters in the basement.

And yes Farm work is very hard with very little return.

(11-18-2019, 08:46 PM)Synric Wrote: Yep I've been doing wood since I was old enough to lift a piece onto the wagon. The only time I haven't had to do wood was the 8 years I was stationed in Lousiana and Overseas.


The thing about wood heat is that once you're used to it nothing else compares it really different. I have free natural gas and still heat with wood...even though I have a couple wall heaters in the basement.

And yes Farm work is very hard with very little return.

Tee Hee

(11-18-2019, 05:58 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Anyone here cut their own firewood?

This will be the third winter since my father died and I moved in with my mom.  My mom chills and insists on using a wood stove to heat our house.  It is a modern two-story brick split-level home.  It has central heat and air, but when my mom gets a chill she says the air coming out of the registers (electric heat) just is not warm enough.

We live on a 150 acre farm with unlimited access to trees, but unfortunately they are almost all on hillsides.  This makes it tough work to get the wood out.  I am old and soft from working in an office for years, so I usually just work 2-3 hours at a time cutting wood.  But this last Saturday I hired a couple of my cousins sons to help and I wanted to get as much done as possible while I had them.  So I ended up working myself way too hard.  The chainsaw I have now (Echo 590) is really too big and heavy for trimming.  So it wears me out to swing it around for long.  Then I worked the pneumatic splitter.  A can sit to do this, but it involves moving huge pieces of wood onto the splitter so my entire upper body was hurting.

When I finally finished and went in to shower I could not bend my arms for long to do things like wash my hair without my biceps cramping.  I had plans to go to a party Saturday night so I laid down to try and take a short nap about 5:00.  When my mom woke me it was close to seven and I could barely walk when I tried to get out of bed.

This is the type of work I used to do on a regular basis when I was younger, but it kills me know.  I really need to get back to some form of regular exercise.  Either that or start buying all my firewood.

You need a vertical hydraulic splitter.  Tow it to where you need to use it, stand it up at the log, and pull the lever!

150 acres, Jesus.

(11-18-2019, 09:51 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: 150 acres, Jesus.

You don't send you kid to college to be a lawyer with a 1/2 acre?

Pneumatic log splitter?? Aren't you a spoiled child. Some of us had to use axe, wedge and maul..

I remember at the gym a couple of years ago there was one of the really muscular guys. Not like the bodybuilders in tv but all defined muscle. I told him I was curious about he hat he does to look like that. There’s no way you get biceps like that just doing standard curls. He asks if I’d like to run through it with him. I said sure I’d give it a shot. He had me do some barbell curls to gauge what weight I would need, and then ran me through six or so different versions of curls using drop sets. I couldn’t completely straighten my arms for three days. They literally would not go all the way out.

(11-19-2019, 12:19 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I remember at the gym a couple of years ago there was one of the really muscular guys. Not like the bodybuilders in tv but all defined muscle. I told him I was curious about he hat he does to look like that. There’s no way you get biceps like that just doing standard curls. He asks if I’d like to run through it with him. I said sure I’d give it a shot. He had me do some barbell curls to gauge what weight I would need, and then ran me through six or so different versions of curls using drop sets. I couldn’t completely straighten my arms for three days. They literally would not go all the way out.

Random thoughts by michael. 

Well, they say getting old ain’t for sissies. ‘Cept they don’t say “sissies.”

(11-19-2019, 12:19 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I remember at the gym a couple of years ago there was one of the really muscular guys. Not like the bodybuilders in tv but all defined muscle. I told him I was curious about he hat he does to look like that. There’s no way you get biceps like that just doing standard curls. He asks if I’d like to run through it with him. I said sure I’d give it a shot. He had me do some barbell curls to gauge what weight I would need, and then ran me through six or so different versions of curls using drop sets. I couldn’t completely straighten my arms for three days. They literally would not go all the way out.

Then you went home and played Video Games and realized there is more in life to Muscles. (I hope)

(11-19-2019, 12:22 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Random thoughts by michael. 

No I was relating to Fred’s post cutting experience.

Welcome to old age Fred. It's a lot of fun, huh?
I still have a lot of yard work to do every year usually from late winter till late autumn.. Just about 2 months off in between.. We have just under a half acre here but in this less than half acre there are about 45 bushes that need constant trimming and cutting. Here in SC they grow up to about 10-20 feet every year. I cut many down to about 3-4 feet to just the basic stalks and within a few months they're already filled in and by years end already over the rooftops and everything needs to be disposed of. At my age it's really more than I can handle, but I do it. Luckily the county picks yard waste up on the side of the road, but it still has to be dragged there all uphill. Last week alone I cut two bushes in the front of the house down to about 3 feet each and by this time next year they'll grow right back to the same height..about 15 feet or more. I filled up my garden cart 12 times for those 2 bushes alone and the cart will handle a LOT more than I could possibly carry by hand. It's 3' x 5' and I haul it with a lawn tractor.. 
Crape myrtle here grows like weeds on steroids..but it makes great firewood once dried. 
If I had to cut firewood here I wouldn't.. I'd use instead something like the MrHeater buddy series propane heaters..  I have a small portable model that can be used with either the small 1 pound tanks up to the much larger 20 pound tanks.. You might want to look into them. You ain't gonna get any younger and firewood ain't gonna get any lighter. 

(11-19-2019, 01:00 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Well, they say getting old ain’t for sissies. ‘Cept they don’t say “sissies.”

I don't bother with playing around the edges of getting old. It's either get old or die. There are no other options.

(11-18-2019, 08:05 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Finally: Check with professional tree cutters. They may pay you (a percentage of what they cut) for the wood

We have sold timber off this farm before.  When we pick trees for firewood we don't cut any that are big and straight enough to have value as timber.

The timber cutters will just drop the trees and cut off the limbs.  We still have to cut anything left to length and haul it in for firewood.

(11-18-2019, 08:45 PM)bfine32 Wrote:  You cannot cut down and split a tree today and put it in the stove tonight. 

That's correct.  I dropped these trees back in the summer.  When my dad was younger they would keep almost a year ahead.  Much of what they split and stacked one year would season for a year before being burnt.

(11-18-2019, 09:11 PM)jfkbengals Wrote: You need a vertical hydraulic splitter.  Tow it to where you need to use it, stand it up at the log, and pull the lever!

That is what we have.  But at times I was working with pieces of hickory more than 24 inches across and 20 inches long.  They had to weigh over 80 lbs.  So even rolling and twisting them onto a vertical splitter was a lot of work.

(11-18-2019, 09:51 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: 150 acres, Jesus.

(11-18-2019, 10:19 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: You don't send you kid to college to be a lawyer with a 1/2 acre?

The farm only has about 8-10 acres of "bottom land" where they used to grow tobacco. They just cut hay off it now.  The rest of the farm is rough wooded mountainous land that can only be used to graze cattle.  My parents bought it (with no house) from an estate in 1974 for $25K.  My dad work at a GM plant (laborer) in Dayton and my mom worked jobs like waitress and busdriver.  I was raised lower middle class.

(11-18-2019, 11:45 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Pneumatic log splitter??  Aren't you a spoiled child.  Some of us had to use axe, wedge and maul..

I know all about that.  My dad claimed that I could turn ax handles into kindling faster than anyone he ever knew.

Seriously though, have split a good bit of wood with a maul before.  It is actually 10 times faster than using a splitter.  But my shoulders can't take that anymore.  I can't even throw anything very hard overhand any more.  Plus some wood (elm, pine) is almost impossible to split. And even good hardwood is tough to split when it has a lot of limbs and branches.  

(11-19-2019, 05:06 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I know all about that.  My dad claimed that I could turn ax handles into kindling faster than anyone he ever knew.

Seriously though, have split a good bit of wood with a maul before.  It is actually 10 times faster than using a splitter.  But my shoulders can't take that anymore.  I can't even throw anything very hard overhand any more.  Plus some wood (elm, pine) is almost impossible to split. And even good hardwood is tough to split when it has a lot of limbs and branches.  

Speaking of your pneumatic log splitter.  Have you seen that attachment for the tail end, that splits it into many sections, with one pass of the piston?  I've not seen one live, in action, and was actually curious to know if they work as well as the video portrays.