All right... I'm not a lumberjack - but I played one on TV today! (OK, OK, not on TV, but on our security cams... geeze, you all are picky!).
The Beloved made a jig to load split logs on so he can sub-cut them. Our Hearthstone™ soapstone wood stove is rather small (but it does a GREAT job - small but mighty!), and the length of these logs is too big for it. So, we load it up:
And the Beloved cuts the logs -
Then our Munchkin helps him load the smaller logs into the bucket of our little tractor, and brings them on over to me, so I can stack them outside our back door.
It's maybe about 30 or 40 yards from the woodpile to the back door, and using the tractor really saves a lot of effort! Plus, the timing works beautifully: as the Munchkin drives the tractor over to drop the logs, the Beloved is re-loading the cutting jig. By the time the tractor returns to the woodpile, there's another bucketful ready to go.
And what am *I* doing while the Munchkin is trekking back and forth and the Beloved is cutting wood?
Why, I'm stacking, of course!
Fourteen or fifteen loads: oh, my poor back! My Beloved thinks we moved a ton of wood today, between this pile and the work we did at the main wood pile.
I think we'll be plenty warm over the next few days, don't you? ;-)