Getting my winter supply of firewood has been fairly expensive this year. Not counting wear and tear on vehicles and saws, I just paid the hospital ER bill for my adult son who managed to run his knee into the saw chain. $600 for 12 stitches. He's fine now - no serious damage done.

This past weekend my youngest son (18) was helping to load the pickup, and managed to throw a round through the back window of my '88 F250. The look on his face was priceless - I doubled over laughing.

Fortunately, the junk '81 parts truck in the pasture (that my wife wishes would disappear) had a good window and gasket so the replacement only cost a couple of hours. Now I have a solid window instead of a slider.....

Any of you have a good story to tell on yourself or someone else?

 

LOL brings to mind when my son was helping me move stuff out of my shop at the javits center when we lost the contract for forklifts there and my son was tossing wheel chocks up in the back of my '89 F 250. well he chipped one off the bed and it bounced through my rear slider. Not having a parts truck int he field i wasnt laughing but the glass guy only charged me $80 to fix it ( with the tint) man i loved that old truck you could haul ANYTHING in it one time we even hauled a battery powered pallet jack in it
it was the ugliest brown truck but i got so much work/ enjoyment out of that truck!

 

well, one time I was camping in the desert, and we were getting ready to have a fire.there was a mesquite branch, about 4-5 inches in diameter, laying pretty close, so I grabbed it, and thought I'd break it in half by hitting it on a rock.well, I hit it once, nothing, few more times, still nothing. finally, concentrating on an x-girlfriend, I put all my strength into it. to my surprise the branch stayed in one piece, but the rock broke in half.

the rock had prolly gotten cracked in a previous fire, but still, that wasn't what I expected.Somebody told me mesquite is also called "ironwood", and I can see why.

 

In New Mexico, we have folks beside the road the sell cords of wood real expensive, that’s not the real problem.
They will tell you a cord of wood is stacked in the wheelbarrow and yes, it will fit in the back of a pinto.

They are lined up on a cold Saturday morning to get their "cord" of wood.
It’s a riot.

 

Reminds me of a story from a few years ago, I believe it was in Dallas. A family decided to have a little neighborhood Christmas party. The booze was flowing, and after the eighth (or was it the ninth?) round of drinks, someone decided to start a fire in the fireplace. One little problem:

It was one of those CARDBOARD fireplaces! 3 fire companies and $80,000 worth of damage later...................

 

u think thats expensive one time we were camping by the lake and ran out of fire wood that we brought, and there was a truck that comes around that sells fire wood, 5 bucks for 5 logs, so we said the heck with that and grabbed the saw and headed for the trees by the camp ground, that was are first mistake your not suppose to cut the trees down in the campground to use as fire wood but we did it anyway and as i was in the tree cutting a limb off the cop drove up and fined us $500 for cutting down there tree's i think next time we will bring our own and not have so much beer to drink before we pull sometihng like that again.

 

I have a cement mixer (inherited from my Dad) early 1950s vintage. Very cumbersome to move around. The light popped on. Built an axle with two wheels; put wheelbarrow handles on it to move it around (kind of like a wheelbarrow). It's still awkward but much easier to use. Decided I needed to mix some concrete one day and needed to move the thing. Nobody around to help, so put the handles on the tailgate of my new (to me) Ranger; lifted the heavy part into the bed. Just so happens that the truck was pointing nose down and just so happens that the new wheelbarrow handles were about 1 inch lower than the back window. You can guess what happened to the back window. Only cost me $500. And to add insult to injury, the glass company didn't bother to clean up the broken glass. Actually had to pick out several pieces from the rubber seal! Needless to say I always load it "handles back" since then.

 

You might want to consider a pair of $50 safety chaps for your son. It will not prevent an injury on a full blown running saw, though it sure helps cut down on the minor ones. Sounds like he got off lucky.

I try to always wear mine now, even using the electric saw for firewood. You just never know, 100,000+ people get injuried by saws every year. Logging is the most dangerous job in America.

 

one word "coal"

 

Not 100% sure, but I think crab fishing in the Bering Sea is considered the most dangerous job in America. Logging is certainly right at the top though.

 

If you don't mind twice the work, the smell, and the fact that nothing you own will ever be clean again, it sure is cheaper.

I'll stick to wood, but we cut & split our own, so it's not all that much less work...

Never have I or anyone that cuts with me ever been hurt by a saw.. If I see them doing something dangerous, I'll take the saw away from them.. I appreciate the help, but not at the cost of someone getting hurt.

My old man did manage to slice through my jeans once a few years ago. He'd never broke left when lifting the saw out in his life. Something posessed him to do so as I was reaching down to get the log he'd just cut. never touched skin, but left a nice hole in the the knee of the jeans... I don't let him that close to me with a saw anymore...

As far as cost...
yeah, it's gone up drastically this year, especially in this area, as the construction industry is booming, while there was a huge plywood shortage, the issue of pressure treated wood came up, and local paper mills' demand more than doubled (one's pulp mill re-opened after 2 years, the other, just seems to be stockpiling)...
Basically, it doubled the price for a straight-job and pup loaded with log length.

 

i remember in arizona they cut a bunch of trees down along side of the highway, misquite? trees i think and they just left all the wood there. So me and my grandpa and my cousin got a full truckload for free.

 

I like wood and cut and split it every year. It's messy and all, but since myself and some of my buds go together it's become a ritual. On the other hand, it's real nice pushing them little buttons on the t-stat and having gas make the heat.

 

I've been enjoying the stories.

Tim - "They will tell you a cord of wood is stacked in the wheelbarrow and yes, it will fit in the back of a pinto."

I've seen some of that too - usually with twine wrapped around the bundle of split wood and they point to the 'cord' as if that somehow explains it. Their eyes usually roll back when you mention 4' x 4' x 8' or 128 sq ft

rebocardo - "You might want to consider a pair of $50 safety chaps for your son..."

Actually there is a pair in the shop he could have taken with him. In his defense he did have on double knee Carhart bibs over denim jeans. But you're right, he did get lucky and should have worn the chaps.

I just try to keep him out of the woods. About 7 years ago he was flipping 8' pole wood end-over-end uphill toward the truck and dropped one over a rock that acted like a fulcrum and sent his end up faster than he could react. Just about removed his lower lip - I don't remember how many stitches that took, but again the good Lord was watching over fools and children and he didn't lose any teeth and the lip healed fine with a 'cool' scar to impress the girls.

We go thru enough firewood that eventually you get careless and thats when dumb things happen.

 

When my cousin was in High School he was a big jock, football, wrestling, track, baseball, if it had ***** he was into it, no pun intended.....Anyway he had managed to get one heck of a case of jock itch. This was back in the late 80's and things were a little different back then....Now, one day he was sitting on the Jon killing 2 birds with one stone, doing #2 and spraying his itchy boys down with a prescription aerosol spray. He eats pretty well, lots of fiber and bran, lots of foul smells lingering around in there. Genius decided to light a match to ease the odor and throws the lit match INTO THE TOILET. You may recall that he was sitting upon the throne when he was a sprayin'. The resulting fireball (again, no pun intended) was so large, and so hot, it burned off his eyebrows and eyelashes, not to mention all of the hair on his unmentionables. 2nd degree burns greeted his twig and berries and he had to individually wrap them for a month...not exactly a firewood story, but I'm sure you can see the connection...