Mama Kindling

The other day I started working on the kindling pile, and managed to split up all of it, or at least what was on the floor. This is sure to be appreciated by R. Since we are working on the barn, there is a fair amount of scrap wood that gets left behind, which is fine by me, because we go through a fair amount of kindling. I cut the longer boards up and I had a fairly substantial pile of dried pine, which I transferred to the basement. Unfortunately, this left a huge pile of wood on the floor, which sat there for weeks. R never complained because she knows what it’s for, but I know it didn’t make her happy.

I finally went down and dealt with it, and as big as the pile was, it only made about 1/3 of the wood that we’ll need over winter. Bummer. At least the mess is cleaned up, sort of. Another problem is that my hatchet is falling apart. I tend to get the cheaper ones with wood handles and then replace them as they go, but this can be a pain. Also, at some point, you’re swinging an axe with a loose head, which is never a fun thing. Somehow those shims never seem to work perfectly.

Also, I’m going to need to make kindling from scratch, which means splitting it from logs. This can be sort of fun if I had all the time in the world, but I don’t, so it becomes sort of stressful because it’s one more thing that needs attending to. Oh well, nobody said being a real man was easy.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.