Questions are answered

     I'm finally somewhat comfortable with the firewood progress so I thought I'd take an afternoon break and answer a question. I've been asked a couple of times what size maul I use to split wood.
    The answer is more than one. They are lined up in the photo. The orange one to the left is the main one. It is all steel and weighs 18 pounds. I use it for the biggest chunks, particularly of birch because it's such a dense hardwood. I've had it for 33 years. Sometimes even that maul won't do it and then I cut a chunk lengthwise with the chainsaw. Some of those are so tough I have to cut the halves into thirds. I usually split those where I cut them because they are way too heavy to be lifting. (I am 76 years old, after all.) The biggest piece of birch I've split so far this winter was 19 inches in diameter. The piece the maul is leaning aganst is spruce and 10 inches in diameter, so the birch was just about twice that size.
     The middle one with the yellow handle I use for lighter work, most of the spruce and some of the smaller pieces of birch. It was new last year, bought after the wood handle on my old one shattered in my hands. It weighs 6 pounds. The spruce it's leaning against is 7 inches in diameter.
    The one on the far right with the blue handle is the weight of an ordinary hatchet, but the long handle gives it more versatility. I usually use it only for splitting kindling or for trimming a branch from a chunk that I missed when I first cut it.
     For backup I have a 3-pound, short-handled maul and steel wedges for splitting the tough ones. Hint: don't waste your money on those plastic orange wedges. I have broken every one I've ever used.
    Now, did you notice the chickadee inspecting the product? If you missed him, he's standing on the edge of the sled to the left in the photo. This spot is right under the feeder. Not the best choice of a location considering the birds, but life on a hillside doesn't offer many level choices. Besides, it doesn't seem to bother the birds at all. They flit in and out all the time I am there and I have even had them land on me. It's all so quiet here I can hear their wingbeats as they fly to the feeder.
So there we have it; not finished yet, but in good shape for next winter.
    Henry David Thoreau wrote he loved heating with wood because it warms you twice. According to this account, how many times do you think someone who really cuts firewood feels that warmth?
    You cut the original into sections of the proper length. You haul it to where you plan to use it, in my case by hand with a 6-foot plastic sled. You split it. You haul or carry it again to where you stack it for storage. Stacking is warming too. Then when it's time to burn you haul it out again and carry it to the stove. Only in my case you don't do that for a year. That's six times by my count, not even considering the fire itself.
     I think old Henry had his firewood delivered, at least in the round.
     The photo at the bottom shows the progress so far: slightly bigger than a cord, counting what still needs to be brought up the hill. A cord and a half holds me through the winter and I have a month and half to get that last half. I also have a bunch of spruce cut for kindling that I only need to split.
     One year when I was quitting smoking I left a small pile to split right outside the door and whenever I felt uptight and wanting a smoke I went out there and split firewood. Haven't had a cigarette in 15 years but I still leave a pile of wood to split by the door. That's it in the picture with the splitting gear.

Firewood and revery 

A mechanical failure is for the birds

No one should ever call me a mechanic. I mean, I can do routine maintenance, and small things,
like change spark plugs if necessary. But don't ever ask me to run the rack on a diesel injection system, or rebuild a carburetor or change a transmission. That just won't happen. And troubleshooting? I can come up with a hundred theories if something breaks down, but seldom the right one. I am guy who swore at his brand new snowmachine for a week when it wouldn't run, only to discover after I had called for help that I had left the parking brake engaged.

     We all know the mechanic you tell about a small noise you heard and he immediately goes to worst case: "we'll probably have to pull the engine, might take a total rebuild." Then someone finds a screw loose, tightens it and all fixed.
    I'm a worst-case guy. Something goes wrong I immediately imagine the worst. Only I don't tear down the engine, I want to call the guy.
   When something breaks out here at the East Pole even calling the guy is a chore and getting the machine to the mechanic is near impossible.
    With that said, two days ago, faced with an impending disaster, I had to go out.
    I went out to start the snowmachine. It fired up once and quit. On the second try it attempted to go but failed. On the third try it only gave me that horrid electronic click. If you've ever had a totally dead battery you've heard that click. Now, this machine's battery has never gone dead even after a whole summer of lay up. There is a manual start, a pull cord like a lawnmower. That proved to be locked up, and could not be pulled. So, not the battery, something mechanical was jammed.
    I tried pulling the machine a few feet hoping to turn the track and free whatever had locked up, but no luck. Thinking it might still be the battery, I hooked up a charger and went indoors to think and read the manual.
    Between the two I realized I had not looked at the side of the engine where the flywheel, drive belt, drive wheel and other moving parts are located.
    I removed that panel and looked through the assembly, but didn't see a tree branch or errant screw jammed in anywhere. But I did see a large nut on the assembly for the lower of two pulleys that together transfer the action of the drive belt to the track. I picked up a wrench to fit and gently but firmly tried to turn the nut. Immediatly I heard a metallic click and looked quickly enough to see a shaft and small cog wheel withdraw from the lower pulley and retreat into the housing for the shaft that rotates the track. Whoa, that had to be it. I sat back and thought about it for a minute. Then I gave the recoil starter cord a gentle tug and woo hoo it was free. A minute later I used the elctric start and the machine fired right off. But O.M.G.
     The engine caught but immediately raced to full rpms; almost getting away from me and diving over the edge and down the hill. I managed to hit the kill switch to stop it. That happened again and then somehow in reverse and it backed up until it dug itself a hole. In one of those starts there was a huge backfire as well.
    So back indoors again. The book said bad plugs can cause backfires and then I noticed something in the startup procedure; you're supposed to operate the throttle lever several times before you start then engine. Long story short, new plugs and squeezing the throttle lever several times and the machine started properly, ran the way it was supposed to and engaged the track and I could drive it away.
     By that time it was too late in the day to start a major trip out the trail and a short shopping run. Despite not getting the job done, I felt pretty good about the day. I left everything there feeling proud of myself, but slightly fearful I would encounter another problem when I started up the next day. Still, a day with a major mechanical success is always a good day.
     The next morning everything ran perfectly. I went out, hit the gas station and the grocery store and made it back home in good time, and, with that major catastrophe averted.
    And what was that catastrophe that caused this monumental effort? I managed to run out of seed for the bird feeder. I had left a 40-pound bag in the truck and had to retrieve it. You just don't want to piss off an army of chickadees and redpolls.