WINTER WOOD

Hello, Neighbor. Glad you stopped by.

Well let's see. We've got the hay all cut and stored away in the barn loft and bay. Now it's time to think about winter coming and keeping the house warm. So that means cutting a lot of wood to last through the cold weather.

When I was a little girl growing bigger, cutting wood was before the chainsaw time. Trees had to be cut early so they could dry out before getting them ready for the stove and furnace.  Dad would have to chop them down with an axe or cross cut saw.  Once the tree was down the branches would need to be removed. When I was big enough I would help him the best I could. The cross cut saw was a little tricky.  It was a long saw about 6 feet long or so with a handle on each end. Dad would take a hold of one handle and I would take a hold of the other. We needed to cut the tree into four ft. lengths so he could haul them out to the big building by the side of the barn and pile them in a long row to dry.
The tricky part of a cross cut saw is not to let it buckle. Dad would pull his handle across the log and I was supposed to pull it back, being careful not to let it buckle in the process. If I did I might hear a few words from Dad. It takes a while to get the hang of it so that you can keep the saw moving down through the log.

When the logs were dry enough for cutting into stove lengths, Dad would start up the old one lunger engine that we kept in the long building.  It was a noisy thing and every once in a while it would make a loud noise.  But you do what you gotta do.  Dad would put the four ft. log on a table that was made so it could be pushed back enough to  allow  the log to meet the saw that was spinning like crazy from the engine that made a belt turn the saw.  My job was to take a hold of the short end that would be cut off the long log and throw it onto a pile.

When the wood was cut into stove lengths the next step was to throw it onto the wagon and take it down to the house to be thrown through the cellar window where it would be either stacked in rows or tossed into a pile.  Also that was where the large pieces would be split with an axe to make them easier to handle. Then the wood would have to be carried up the stairs and put into a wood box by the kitchen stove for Mom to use to heat up the stove for cooking.

It was a long haul to get just one tree to the place of being useful for heating and cooking. But that's the way it was.  Another necessary task to living on a farm.