(no subject)

[which_chick]

I am burning lumps of wood this evening. Normally I burn logs of wood, but this evening it's lumps instead. This is part of the "get the huge lumps of wood out of the yard" initiative. I am tired of there being great huge lumps of wood in my yard. (They've been there since I moved them out of M's yard back in November of 2008. I split some of them last winter but didn't make it all the way through getting 'em done because they were so fucking depressing to stack.) This is a multi-stage offensive and I'm giving it the old college try even though any grass that might once have been under these tree lumps is long since dead.



Multi-stage offensive, I said. Here it is.

Stage 1: Unstick frozen big lumps from ground, using sledge end of maul.
Stage 2: Determine what end of lump is most likely to split. (Non-trivial.)
Stage 3: Swing axe-like end of maul at likely end of lump. Repeat as needed until lump splits or fails to split enough to be shunted to Stage 3 subroutine (below)
Stage 3a: Use wedge to attempt to split lump into smaller pieces.
Stage 3b: Use other wedge to free first wedge, if possible.
Stage 3c: Cry like an abandoned toddler.
Stage 4: Repeat Stage 3 for lumps of wood until the lumps are small enough to fit into woodstove.
Stage 5: Build a good fire with roaring coals of hot. Lumps do not burn well without this help.
Stage 6: Dump a few lumps onto the roaring coals of hot.
Stage 7: When fire burns down, add more lumps. If out of lumps, you may resume using actual logs.

This evening I did several uninteresting lumps and three y-trunked lumps. I am now very happily (there is cackling and "Die, You Bastard" invective going on) burning the aforementioned lumps. In revenge. It is making my house toasty warm.

In other news, am making ham-n-bean soup. Yum. I really like ham.

Comments

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

Yay burning lumps! I've learned not to end the fire with any remotely twisty pieces. This strategy is doomed to run into the problem that we have more twisty pieces than nice straight slabs of heartwood.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

For the ugly wood, I don't have nice straight pieces either. My usual wood is entirely nice, straight pieces, but the ugly wood is, well, ugly. I'm trying to work it off before spring.