I was just watching one of those home improvement shows on TV. The guy was telling us how to cut firewood. Well, you all know what a firewood fanatic I am! I agreed with most of what he said except on a couple points.

First thing is mostly a difference of opinion. He was pushing the use of a hydraulic log splitter instead of a maul. I guess it's ok for the weekend weakling, and if you have a crew of two or three people to operate the thing. Not me though. I get pretty serious about my firewood cutting, and dragging one more thing around the woods takes a lot of extra time. Not to mention the extra work involved with carrying the wood to it, and adding the extra steps to the process just because you have another machine to feed. Much simpler with a maul and your manly muscles. Cut the tree to length where it falls, tip the blocks up on end where they lay, swing the maul, put the finished split wood right onto the wood hauler. Done. My maul swings a lot faster than the log splitter moves, and the only time a log splitter can out pace me is when there are two or more people running it.

The second thing is not a matter of opinion. The guy showed how he had the tree-length logs cut down the year before. Then when he is going to start burning wood for the season, he drags the tree-length logs out of the woods with his pickup (good luck getting that full-size truck into where I cut). He said that the wood is ready to burn as soon as it's cut to length and split. Wrong! I've never seen a fallen tree completely dry and ready to burn, especially ones with the bark still on them like his were. It helps if they are standing dead with the bark off, but even in that case they are several years old and still wet inside. Doesn't really start seasoning until after it's been cut, split, and properly stacked. And then it still takes at least a couple years before it gets real good!