I try and split a few face cords with a maul every year just because it good exercise for types of muscles that don’t often get used otherwise. If you don’t use them you will lose them. Too many people try and live their lives with as little effort as possible. I am currently building a hoist on the back of the truck to lift some of the firewood rounds that I was still able to load by body power even a couple years back. I tell you that being 78 isn’t as much fun as people probably think it is. A little bent but still not broken. 
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So very true. I sometimes watch people passing by that don’t heat with wood. Walking back and forth like lion in a cage only to keep their bodies from detriorate. Slowly strolling for half an hour a day doesn’t help much though, and as you say - most muscles aren’t used at all.
We got a couple hours of sunshine today, even though it was several degrees below freezing. I took the oppertunity to bag some chunks for a while and then rolled in a dussin wheelbarrows of firewood, since snow is forcasted later this week. Produced some sweat and got something done. I doubt I would have been able to motivate myself walking in circles to get the same amount of excersize.
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(GWWTOHAWGYBAGW). Got Wood Will Travel Or Heat And Will Give Your Body A Good Workout. This is what I have seen with the doers on this DOW site.
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After working all day mulching the leaves in the yard with my riding lawn mower that the poplar trees are dropping now and there are still more to fall. I think it my third time going over the whole yard. I am done with tring to rake those leaves up.
I am glad I covered my 92 Dakota before the leaves began to fall. I really need to take a drive in the truck soon.
I finally got the battery charge up and installed on the wood chunker. It was one of my old deep cycle batteries from from motorhome that came out of my boat back in 2007. Bought new in 1995. I do not now how this battery is still working but is. It weighs 67 lbs. And it is a maintenance free battery. Did they make good batteries back then or what. My other one just like is not taking a charge very well any more. But still works.
Warmed up the engine and chunked enough wood in five minutes to run my garage stove for a fews days.
This pile is going to be more fuel for the 92 Dakota gasifier truck. It should be gone tomorrow if things work out.
A storm is coming in tonight. More snow in the mountains where it belongs I hope and pray. It is a race now for me. The Jeep build is on hold until the wood is all chunked and covered up in the apple bins boxes for the stove and chunks in the cage silos for more DOW fuel. Got Enough Wood ? (GEW? N,NY) Nope, Not Yet. It was dark by the time Dana and I walked our dog Marley and got back to the house. Are these days getting shorter on day light or what.
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Well things did not go as planned today, Thank You Almighty God that it was changed. I needed to make more room for the plallets to put my wire fence silos on. The big poplar tree behind the spot needed some triming of the lower branches that had suckered out for many years. These trees have doubled in size around the trunk since the 16 years we have lived here. The next tree on the other side of the wood silos has a big Yellowjacket nest in that tree I will wait until it gets good and cold before I do some triming on it.
After a few hours of triming I had a nice plie of wood for next year and all cut up for the stove.
About 7 years a go I had a shovel and the shovel end broke off. I put it by the tree and forgot about it. Well I found it. It had grown into the tree.
I was cuting the tree with chain saw and it was right where I left it but higher off the ground now.
My grandson thought it was so cool that this could happen, he is going to be 10 this year.
I cut it out and finished cutting around the tree and ended up with a nice pile of big wood for the fire pit too.
New space for the wire fence silos.
It was a beautiful sunny day and warm. Maybe The Yehovah is willing I will get some chunking done tomorrow. No rain in the forecast all of this week and I pray it stays that way.
The sun was setting and the new day was about to begin.
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Lots of chunking wood today. I only have about one cord of DOW left in my storage silos and in bags, I have no fire wood put up at all. So you know what I chose to chunk up today, thats right more DOW for the gasifier. You just can not have too much DOW,
I do have a big pile of wood that would not go into the chunker that needs to be cut up for the wood stove.
Heading out to the back yard where we have nice fire going in the charcoal making fire pit. Time to take anotherday of rest. Thank you Almighty God , you are so good.
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Once I got started finally it was all good.
About less than a 1/4 of the pile left to chunk up or cut up for fire wood. How old is this cherry wood pile? I think it was there when Jacob North made his histortic drive around the USA back in 2021. The youngest person to DOW across the USA and back home again. I was so glad I could be a part of that drive with his team, even if it was just hauling extra wood across three different states. Great memories of a DOW adventure. Thank you Jacob for let me be a part of it and part of your DOW Across America team.
More fire wood to cut up.
Ready for the stove.
If the wood looks like it will cause problems in the hopper after going through the chunker I pick it out and it goes into the stove for heating this winter in the shop. Wood with Y shapes and longer than 6" seems to cause bridging in my hopper.
Three silos of wood done and more to chunk up tomorrow.
My tarps for the old wood pile are shot and need to be disposted of.
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The weather forecast is predicting 80 % chance of snow tomorrow and the next few days. . I will probilely be cutting and chunking more wood God willing. I have another apple bin full of stove wood. 5 more bins to go. And more DOW to chunk up. I might not be able to SWEM going by a gas station in my truck right now, but just thinking about it makes me want to bite into a lemon wedge for some reason.
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Well a big change in plans, it rained hard here instead of snowing and it did it all day down here in the river basin. We are at the 730 foot above sea level elevation. Just a little high at the 1700 elevation it was snowing and recived a few inches. It is just starting to snow lighty right now at 07:54 pm. They saying 2" to 3" by tomorrow. Well I decided to stayed inside and worked on my charcoal augar that needed to be finished up. It screws into a white plastic barrel.
I got the idea from Gary Gillmore’s gasifier that he build a few years ago designed off the kalle gasifier.
This was going to be placed on top of the red Subrau Outback. I am still going to use it on the double flute gasifier but with a stationary genset and the new bigger plastic hayfilter barrel.
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