C'mon, Self, we can do this!

Three and a half hours with a chainsaw, cutting trees into firewood.  The Ragin' Parents have had part of their property logged, and not all the logs are fit for the mill.  Those that are rejected get piled up, and they are either burned as part of a slash pile, or they're cut up for firewood.

Well, my parents use wood heat, and they go through about five to eight cords of wood a winter, depending on conditions.

One cord of wood = a stack of wood 4' X 4' X 8'.  So we're talking 128 cubic feet of cut, dried, split lumber.

Needless to say, Dad isn't going to let all that free firewood just go to waste.  So since I had my chainsaw with me, and of course he has his own, we set to work with a purpose.  Both of us burned through three tanks of gas in three and a half hours, and the jumbled stack of logs slowly turned into neat stacks of cut rounds.  They'll stay where they are while they dry, until it's time to split them.

Waking up today was an experience in making sure I didn't turn over too quickly, lest my lower back explode out in a gruesome display.

I used to do this shit all day, every summer day, and then go out and run around like a crazy person.  Damn, I got old.  At least I can take pleasure in the fact that come the holidays, we'll be kept warm by that stack of wood.