Active back yard

My back yard gives the impression that I'm busy with some sort of project. Which is actually a correct assessment.

About two weeks ago, we had a bit of a storm. My next-door neighbor lost two trees -- and he was kind enough to save the trunks for me.

Also, at the university campus where I work (two days a week), I always drive past the end of the parking lot where the maintenance guys dump the branches and lawn clippings, in search of useable chunks of log. (I have standing permission to pick things up.) Last week, I found three decent logs, each of them a nice color and two or three feet long.

So, my current hobby seems to be de-barking various chunks of wood with a mallet and wide chisel, than using a coarse-toothed ripsaw to cut them in half, then quarters, to minimize their splitting as they dry (and thus being less use-able as slabs of wood).

In addition, a few weeks ago my other next-door neighbor's pool and patio deck was completed. He gave me permission to come by and grab whatever leftover lumber was in the discard pile. (Sadly, I missed the first round of discarded lumber: the bulldozer scooped it up and took it off to the dump.)

So: The top photo shows a (labeled) overview of my yard: the three piles of wood from the swimming pool (two need brushing with a stiff wire brush); the various piles of wood to be de-barked; things soaking in the wading pool; and my custom-built sawbuck.

The second photo shows a closer view of my de-barking area. I have the logs up on cinder blocks, to keep them up off the wet grass (it's been raining every few days), and away from the termites.

You can also see the sawbuck, holding up the log that I'm currently de-barking.

The third photo shows a bunch of logs -- both de-barked and to-be-debarked -- that I'm trying to keep wet, so that they don't dry out and start splitting before I'm waiting for them. Again, it's been raining every few days, so the water tends to replenish itself.

Finally, the fourth photo shows a closer view of the sawbuck. I **had** been trying to saw logs in half by putting each end on my wood stumps -- but it was rather awkward: they kept rolling around. I reasoned that a dedicated holder, with a V-shaped holding area, would work well -- and that I'm doing enough of this type of sawing that it was worth the time I'd invest in building it.

The design is based on a traditional sawbuck, which people use for cutting firewood. Rather than use an existing design, I just winged it. I intentionally made the "V" at 90 degrees, rather than 60 degrees, as I didn't want the log to be "pinched" quite that strongly.


--GG