Fog, rain, sunshine and two cords of wood, and we only cut down two trees.

We got a slow start to getting firewood yesterday. The grandkids had come and the kids were all camped out on the front room floor.  Buga had had a nap late in the afternoon so was up late finally falling asleep in around 11ish.  We got them up around 7:30ish and I made them pancakes.  Surprise of surprises M was the first one done, followed by Buga and then the older kids.  We decided that with the fog and the rain we would see if Mokie and family would like the kids to come and spend the day with them.  We took the new trailer and knew it would take all day to fill it as it will hold around 2 cords flat, no heaping.  We finally made it to the top of the mountain around 11ish.  Poppie cut down the first tree, one I had spotted a week or so ago.  It was huge.  It came down with no problems and slide to the road where we could pull it with our small chain.  I cleaned the broken branches off of the road while Poppie walked over to the second tree. It was huge too but a little shorter with a split top.  Poppie cut into it and used his wedges to help tip it forward a little as it was leaning back a little.  The tree was so heavy that the wedges didn't want to pound in with the small pounding hammer.  I threw him the splitting maul and he came down the hill to get it,  it took awhile as walking up mountains is one of the hardest things Poppies does, actually walking at all for any distance is hard on him.  He walked back up and pounded in the wedges still the tree wouldn't fall.  Poppie had to cut on the tree more, ended up cutting out the front of the tree and it still would not move to fall.  It was actually being held in the air with two spots of wood on both edges of about 3x3 inches.  Poppie had never had that happen before.  He thinks the split tops were so well balanced the tree was literally stand in the air by balance.  He finally took a stick and pounded it in above the wedge and the giant tree crashed to the ground.  The tree took over 45 minutes to fall.  We had both trees on the ground by about 12;20.  Poppie came down the hill and we put a chain on the bigger giant and pulled it on the the roadway.  Poppie took a rest and then we started cutting blocks, Poppie cutting and I stacked them to the side of the road so if anyone came up the road they would be able to pass.  I didn't start stacking the trailer as we knew we would have to pull the second tree.  We cut over 70 blocks from the one tree it measured over a 100 feet tall. Beautiful wood, and a wonderful find as it was so easy to get.  We chained up the second tree and Poppie pulled it down, it was amazing it came down one of the broken tips of it's double top slid to a rest with a resounding hollow thud.  It came to a rest on the top of all of the 70 blocks,  we couldn't have done that had we tried.  I was laughing so hard Poppie had to stop the pickup to see why.  There the second giant sat on a row of wood blocks all ready to cut, and as it was 16 inches off the ground, it would not hurt Poppie to bend over to cut them, and there would be not danger of sawing into the ground.  We got all of the 45 minutes of time back and then some.  We cut and stacked all of the would and were on the way home by 4 which was truly a blessing.  Poppie and I had a nice time, good hard work, time to be alone and talk of our lives and just talk of the nothingness that couples will.  We were home by 5 and sore. 

I took off my shoe when I got home and my foot began to swell up, it was very bruised.  Poppie was a little upset and asked what happened to my foot.  I told him a block rolled on it.  He said, "when the block roll after you get out of the way next time"  I said "it wasn't rolling after me I chase it and stopped it with my foot so I didn't lose it over the edge of the mountain"  He growled and said "don't do that again just step back and wave at is as it goes by, a block of wood is not worth getting hurt for"  I think Poppie has more right to say that than about any one, most of us never have to experience having had a tree fall on you and he respects the wood more than most now..... tomorrow.