Trust: It's a Work in Progress: My husband the Lumberjack!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

My husband the Lumberjack!

The shavings stained his pants green!

Both Chris and I always look forward to the wood stove at my parents house. It is so nice to sit beside the stove and just 'let your bones bake' as my Dad says. In addition to enjoying the wood stove Chris was looking forward to helping fuel the wood stove! After learning how to cut wood a couple summers ago Chris has been a huge fan. He tells me he enjoys the sense of accomplishment he gets when cutting wood, he is able to tangibly see his progress and enjoy the fruit of his labor.

There were three hedgeapple trees down at the other farm so Chris and the boys worked on it soon after we arrived at Mom and Dad's. Hedgeapple is really good to burn in the wood stove because it burns hot and for a longer time than many other woods, but this quality is derived from how hard the wood is which means it is also harder to split! Fortunately, most of the tree was small enough in diameter that Chris only needed to cut in into appropriate lengths for the stove. After Christmas the weather warmed up and the ground was too soft for them to work at the other farm, so Dad helped take down a tree near the house that was rotting out in the center. After a full day of practice and work with the chain saw Chris got to 'graduate' to a new chain, this made his second day easier until the new chain became loose and he had to switch to one of the other saws. In spite of sore muscles I think this was one of the highlights of Chris' trip home!