Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Harvesting Cherry Trees

Harvesting firewood is hard work!

I no longer begrudge the gas station for charging $5.00 a bundle!

Each year the local orchards knock down a bunch of trees and offer the lumber to the locals. The only catch? You have to chop it up yourself.

Hubby and I decided to give it a try. We loaded the kids, a jug of water, the dog, and a chainsaw into the car and headed over. With a combo like that, adventure couldn’t be far away.

We pulled in to this...

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It was pretty. Pretty intimidating. When we looked closer we saw this...

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The golden limbs, ones big enough to actually heat our home, were buried beneath dead leaves and hundreds of criss-crossing smaller branches. The kids and I set to work clearing the smaller stuff while Hubby went to town with the chain saw. There was a Zen-like look on his face as he worked. Men and their toys! I thought my kids’ toys were loud.

After a few hours we had enough wood to last for a week and a half piled in the trailer and we were out of trees. Apparently, we were one of the last groups through the orchard. I was okay with it. Cherry wood is hard. Hard and heavy. It took two of us to get some of the larger logs onto the trailer. The good part is, heavy wood burns longer.

My one disappointment in the trip was not getting to yell “timber!”