Thursday, February 10, 2022

HELOISE!

 

Heloise!  I commiserate.  You, and I , and Miss Manners keep getting the same questions no matter how many times we give the correct answers:  Do you tell if… “I’ve got spinach in my teeth?”  A little harder: “Do I have bad breath?”  And the ultimate, “Do these pants make me look fat?”

 

Anyway, there a few questions that sometimes need to be asked and answered over and over again, and today as I split a couple of cords of firewood, I thought of  us.  Well, everybody thinks that a powerful log splitter makes everything super easy, well, they might not be experienced… or they aren’t pushing 80 (like you and I are).   Anyway, as I worked through a pile of 24, 26, 28, and 30 inch diameter 18 inch long oak rounds, I thought of you.

 

Even if you don’t often respond to my notes to you, I know that you and I are kindred spirits.  WE know that “easy splitting” isn’t always the norm, even with a powerful splitter (and we know and insist that it be a vertical set-up).  So, as I encountered a few of those rounds that have a fork, or a large branch, or a hidden knot, I thought: “Let’s remind folks of the right way to attack this situation.”

 

AND, since we’re trying to deal with 100 pound logs (as we sit on a log and don’t bend and abuse our backs) we do so as safely and efficiently as possible.  Sometimes you should flip that sucker upside down, even if that’s hard to do.

 

SO, “split from the bottom up” is the almost perfect rule.  I mean, if the fork looks like it was when it was on the tree, flip that round upside down and split from the root end.  This works almost 100% of the time, way better than the other way around.  Splitting from the top down can result in a situation where the damn thing just won’t split… the hydraulics are straining, or worse; an explosive “success” and a split that throws stuff at you.  I always hate it when that happens.

 

By the way, don’t you just love the smell of freshly split oak “of a certain age” as you expose its inner being?  I’d tell you what some old carpenters told me what that smell reminded them of… but this is a family column

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