One of our weeping cherries died last winter so we’ve been chopping it up for kindling and firewood! Cherry burns so hot that the flames are blue, so you *know* that’s popular in our home! Here’s a trashcan full of cherry kindling from the smaller branches.

THAT is gonna make starting fires a breeze! While we had the electric chain saw out we sectioned the branches into 8″ pieces for the Tulikivi soapstone fireplace, as it only has a 10″ firebox.

All cherry! Sweet! Then on Sunday our good friend Chris hooked us up with an eight foot truck bed of pear, maple, oak, and cherry, 😎 and the real fun began. First up was loading The Truuuck, then the next morning when my Chris did his “commute” downstairs to his office (yay to working from home!) I set about unloading the bounty.

As I picked through to find pieces I could lift and heave over onto the driveway I devised The Plan! Grabbing my trusty tape measure I checked the interior of the cast iron wood stove. Seventeen inches would be perfect! So I then sorted the logs into three groups – 17″ or less, longer than 17″, and those that required splitting. My plan was genius! By Monday afternoon I had stacked those 17″ or less near the Tulikivi stack. I stacked the longer logs near the cinderblock chopping station, and left the massive hunks for splitting in a pile near the truck.

After a much needed shower I hit Crozet Hardware to buy some splitting wedges and try my hand at serious manual labor! Okay, not my hand so much as my arms and back -LOL! My trusty five pound hammer and wedges in hand I began… Managed to split one log and was forced to go inside to sink into my chair with an ice cold gatorade… In my defense it WAS in the mid-nineties outside! Once more into the fray and I split two of the behemoth stump logs. It is incredibly satisfying when they finally start to crack! The photo below has our cast iron stoves 17″ logs on the left and Tulikivi log pile stacked to its right!

Chris came out after work and totally put my splitting efforts to shame, easily crushing one log after another. It takes him a tiny fraction of the time that it took me to split a log. Nevertheless I persist! Muscles, this will definitely give me muscles, as well as some much needed upper body training!

On Tuesday I bravely continued my assault on Mount Wood, splitting another three stump logs! But, as you can see, much work remains.

Life is Good!