| 514 | Lumberjack | 2011-11-10 |
In the years past, we have burned firewood to help heat our house. We keep our thermostat set at sixty degrees and use the small fireplace to take the chill out of the air in the evenings.
Fireplaces are inefficient and we have burned a lot of wood for a little bit of heat. So we purchased a Morso wood stove. The stove is made from mostly recycled metals and is designed as one of the most efficient stoves on the market. The exhaust from the stove (out the flue) has less emissions than burning the furnace!
We are excited. The stove, which is sitting in the living room, is to be installed on Saturday!
With a stove comes the job of finding wood. Oh, we could buy wood; but that takes the fun away from wood collecting. Daily I run the streets of our neighborhood. As I run, I am always looking for wood. Most folks do not burn wood in their fireplace and any excess wood is put out on the street for the chipper truck. After I spot a stack of excess wood, we take the truck and collect the wood, bring it back to the house, and prepare the wood for the fireplace (chopping and splitting). On occasions when we hear of free wood elsewhere, we have been known to travel for good hardwood.
Recently, our friend, Jon - the engineer, suggested that we make a trip to his job site to collect wood. The downed trees were removed for construction and were going to be mulched. Jon and I drove our trucks to the location about an hour form the house. There was an abundant supply of downed wood there. A couple of other trucks were already at the site. Saws were roaring as we got our little Echo CS346 chain saw from the truck.
We filled one of our trucks with wood and had started on the next, when one of the wood men asked me, "hey what size is that Stihl?"
I remembered looking at a spare chain in the truck earlier that reminded me that it had a 16 inch bar. So I responded, "I think it is a 16."
Puzzled, he said, "I didn't know Stihl made one that small."
I then told him that it was an Echo, not a Stihl. (My older Echo looks like a Stihl or at least they use the same colors.) The wood men nodded with a that 'explains it' look.
So a few things I learned from my wood cutting day ...
Wood men use Stihl chain saws.
If one of the wood men ask you what size your saw is, they are talking about the size of the engine not the blade length!
If you look like you are working very hard, the wood men will let you sing the Lumberjack song with them. Want to sing along? "I am a lumberjack, and I'm okay ..." link to you tube
More on the Morso stove soon. We can't wait!
Happy lumberjack trails