Tag: Firewood

Spring Has Sprung – 2018

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

With the official start of Spring – as determined by the fact that my wife was reading a book, enjoying the sunshine, and drinking wine in the yard – we had a busy weekend at La Maison Du Talley:

Moved all the power tools in the shop against the wall for temp storage duty
Ordered material for attic finish
Set up new iPhone (old one a brick!)
Checkout at Pratt to be able to independently use their fabrication shop.
Moved everyone else’s crap out of my basement and temporarily into the garage
Said dirty words about all the other people’s crap being stored in our home
Cleaned the basement completely out
Pruned the apple trees in the backyard
Restacked the firewood wood pile
Cleaned and prepped attic for floor installation
Published two YouTube videos
Set up new condenser microphone in home office/studio
Breakfast with my mom and wife
Went to the Moonshiners 36th Annual Jeep Swap Meet
Did not buy a new-to-me 1946 CJ-2A project Jeep
Stayed Married
Did not buy a motorcycle or boat at the swap meet
Stayed married – there is a theme…
DID buy an ARB on-board air compressor and a duel battery mount – and got a sweet deal!
Signed up for three classes at Pratt for this spring: Block printing, wood carving, and letterpress
Padded and protected the wood floor and built-ins in prep for attic finish
Cleaned the hot tub
Edged and mowed the front and back yard
Spread Weed&Feed on the back yard and parking strip
Re-seeded the front yard

Chopping Firewood Warms You Twice

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have some on the most awesome neighbors ever. I know a lot of people say that, but I firmly believe in mine.  One of my neighbors across the street took down a maple and a cedar and offered both up as fire wood for me to just HAVE!  Now, two trees is a lot of wood to and split and the cedar looked nasty with lots of knots and limbs.  I decided to rent a $70 hydraulic log splitter for the day and just get it done.

I showed up with a chainsaw, bar-oil, and the splitter and he had it all laid out and ready to go.  He gave me pre-mixed gas for the saw and spent 9 hours helping me bust it all up – just because!!  Even though we used the splitter, it was still HARD work and we lifted/rolled/moved/cut/shoved 2+cords of wet heavy wood around.  It was work!  I bought him lunch and a bottle of Bushmills 10yo Whiskey, but that is nowhere near enough payment for all he did!

The maple is enough to supply around a third of our wood for next winter (takes a while to season) and the cedar will make for awesome fire pit wood in the back yard and at the beach!  I am on the lookout for some oak to lay up this winter and I would commit heinous acts for a load of madrona…