They say there comes a time,
and I suppose it is true! They also say that everything has its day, and I
suppose that’s true as well!
I look around me at the trees
that I have planted and how they have controlled the gorse and how some of them
have grown so large that I can’t reach around them when I hug them. My annual firewood
supply is mostly generated form bits of trees that are blown down when the wind
is strong, or from the willows along the river bank that encroach too far into
the paddock. Sometimes I cull a few, thinning to make the others fatter, but
now some are too fat for the length of my cutter bar!
The funny thing is that I
planted (most) them for firewood when the theory of the day was to harvest them
at a stage when they didn’t need splitting and coppice them but, nah, I found
it best to grow them on to realise a far greater volume.
I used to cut biscuits, or
rings if that is a better term, and store them until I had enough for a day’s
work with a hired, hydraulic woodsplitter. But since I have retired, time is
not such an issue – well time is an
issue but for other reasons – so now I take my little truck to the site and
split the wood with an axe, loading split pieces are not so heavy and easier on
my bones. There is skill in using an axe, you need to be able to hit the same
place twice, thrice or even four times and you have to look at the piece to
find where it will split the most easily. This is good for the mind and easier
on the bones!
The not-so-easy bits? I have
wedges (and old axe heads) and a sledge hammer so not too much effort is
required to split them. And for the impossible bits, I just use the chainsaw –
if I don’t fancy doing that, I have a surplus of wood, so fungus and grubs can
decompose it!
I have ropes and pulleys and
although my little truck is just that, little, and with no four wheel drive, I
put a load on the back to give me traction and I can pull all the that I need
to pull.
Ok, it is my hobby, growing
and harvesting trees and after a lifetime of doing everything as efficiently as
possible, the rebel in me loves to be inefficient! I bundle up strips of
Eucalyptus bark – the shedded stuff – and tie into small bundles which are
ideal for fire starters. The fallen branches of eucalyptus and poplar, I
collect and saw them to length by hand with a jacksaw. I use this wood to
rekindle the fire when there are still live embers – the sawing is easy as pie and
I have my radio there for company – raucous as my voice is, I sing along and
there is nobody to hear me. Still I have heaps of branches in the paddock that
I pile up and when kids visit, they can watch, learn and toast marshmallows.
So I have to face up to the
truism of the first couple of lines! There is another truism too that I have to
consider: you should make life changes while you have choice, rather than wait
until you have to!
So we have started to consider
our options and soon we will have to put this place that through forty years of
toil has converted a gorse covered couple of river flats into a home with a
forest.
I enjoy innovation so my
advertisement would be something like this.
For Sale: Chainsaw in good working order together with eight odd
hectares of partly forested land with river frontage and a Lockwood house.
Facilities for a flock of sheep as well.
By negotiation to a careful
person a faithful little truck may be included.
Interested parties need to
enjoy trees and the environment and perhaps have some upper body strength.
Chainsaw tuition for the
uninitiated will be provided free.
Price? How deep are your
pockets?
