Doing the Splits with a Log Splitter

After much debate and realizing that a lumberjack I am not, I broke down and invested in a log splitter. There are many different log splitters on the market, from foot powered to hydraulic, gas engine models. One of the features that most models tout is the amount of force exerted on the piece of wood to be split. The low end seems to be around 10 tons while the larger units range from 20 tons to 25 tons. For the majority of the soft woods, the 10-ton units would probably suffice, but the speed in which it splits the wood is rather slow. The 20-ton and above splitters not only give you greater force, but they also split the wood faster. When splitting a lot of wood, the extra speed makes a big difference. Besides using the log splitter to split wood for the house, it will come in handy for regular, old firewood too.

I was able to cut about half of all the logs this past week, but I still need to split about half of what I already cut. This coming week will find me busy splitting and cutting more wood along with working out the details to possibly procure some barn board for interior doors and other house accents.

On another note, the house is now boarded up for the winter. Without having all the exterior walls completed, there’s not much I can do to keep the heat from escaping out of the house, so the day is rapidly approaching when I will have to wrap things up here in Minnesota. During the winter months, most of my time will be spent at our home in Illinois but I hope to continue to bring you updates from time to time.

Eastern Bluebirds tend to stick around until the first snows arrive and these two were quite interested in one of the bluebird houses along the fence line. Maybe they were scouting out next year’s house.