We had frost here in the bottoms the other night. It took all day to get the house up to 68. So I sent my youngest son out to chop wood yesterday. Of course, no one can find the ax because whoever used it last (not me) didn't put it away. So he chopped enough wood for this morning with the hatchet. Only first he had to remove the rust from the hatchet because his brother left it lying outside in the rain and it rusted.

Am I the only one who cannot teach teenage boys the value of a dollar. I purchased that ax last year and I do not have the money for a new one. The hatchet is new as well.

How many of you start to do one task and find yourselves wasting time gathering and preparing the tools? This only happens when I have the boys do the work. Okay, it MOSTLY only happens when the boys do the work. I will confess to misplacing my dressmaking shears this spring.

At least I have a lovely wood fire this morning. Has fall arrived anywhere else? And how did all you ladies learn how to chop wood? I've been lucky in that respect. Teenage boys can be useful and chopping wood does relieve alot of teenage angst. My efforts at chopping are extremly funny. At least that was the impression I got from seeing my boys rolling around on the ground laughing.

Also, how should I sharpen the hatchet and the ax when found?

-- Cheryl Cox (bramblecottage@hotmail.com), September 10, 2000

Answers

Man, frost already? Where might you be at? Hate the word...reminds me that winter is just around the corner...then that 'S' word creeps into the picture! We sharpen our axes in a bench grinder when the need arises...don't know if it is the 'proper' way, but it sure gets the job done for us!

-- Joe A. (Threearrs@AOL.com), September 10, 2000.

we almost had a fire a few nights ago but the chimmeny has not been cleaned yet. my husband is famous for "misplacing" things,i find alot of stuff when i mow!it drives me nuts. it got so bad i started my own secret tool collection, yard sale finds and such.i hide them from himin the barn under a pile of feed sacks. he would die if he found out! i sometimes get a sick pleasure watching him look for such and such that he may have used last year somewhere out in the field. this summer he tried to get better i will give him a c for effort . one of these days maybe he will "get"it?

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), September 10, 2000.

I have had two frosts since the first of September. It was too dry to risk lighting a fire for a couple of days but now since we having been having showers off/on for a week I have been having a fire in the stove. It has been in the 30's every night the past week and not over 60-65 in the daytime.

Cheryl I have had the most luck with a splitting maul instead of an ax. Don't have to swing it as hard. Seems easier of me anyway.

-- Marci (ajourend@libby.org), September 10, 2000.

Its cold here also but no frost,50 degrees.we also have a fire.. When I have to split wood I use a wedge and a mall,it makes it much easier.I hope this cool weather doesn't last, I have a LOT of green tomatos.. Doris in Idaho

-- Doris Richards (dorisquilts@webtv.net), September 10, 2000.

Cheryl:

I don't misplace things. I have two separate black holes. One floats around the garage/workshop and prefers hammers, tape measures and 1/2" box end wrenches. The second floats around the house and prefers scizzors, nail clippers and ball point pens. I keep feeding their appetite by occasionally find them on sale, buying a bunch and stocking them around the place. I estimate I have 20 hammers on the farm - someplace. On tools which might have been left out in the field, actually I rationalize I planted them in hope of one sprouting and eventually producing a lifetime supply.

Bench grinders are fine for sharpening tools or lawnmower blades, but I much prefer what is called a 'palm grinder'. Basically a mini disk grinder. They don't cost much and it is amazing how useful they are.

What you might consider is putting up a sheet of plywood on a wall and painting it white. Then put tools up on them with nail holders and outline them with a black marker. That way you can tell at a glance when a tool isn't in its proper place.

When Mom moved out on Dad, for her first Christmas she got a good basic toolkit and high-quality yard tools. I have known people to do something similar for a house/apartment warming gift for newlyweds. A good source for cheap tools is Northern Tool & Equipment Co. (800- 533-5545 for catalog). They are predominately imports, but fine if they won't be worked hard.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 10, 2000.

I paint the handles of hoes, shoves, axes and anything used outside HOT pink!!!!It also extends the life of the handles. When my children were at home we used the paint that glows in the dark!~ As for things lost in the house! They aren't really lost~~ the "evelves" just borrow them and I find them as soon as I no longer need them!!!

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), September 10, 2000.

Cheryl, I use a splitting maul too. Those axes just aren't heavy enough to put any weight behind it. I am just not strong enough to split with just an axe. The axe gets stuck in the wood and I can't even get it out! I had a good splitting maul and my husband broke the handle, and it still isn't fixed. He better fix it soon. I have to split wood allot. We are still in summer, garden still loaded, but mornings are much cooler now, we still sleep with all the windows open. Not ready for winter. Keep warm, get you a splitting maul and HIDE it.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), September 10, 2000.

Hee-hee! Debbie, I thought I was the only one who painted my tool handles pink! Only I did it to keep the guys at the factory where I was working from walking off with my tools.

My hubby is "a place for everything and everything in it's place" type guy, Pop is just the opposite. John keeps trying to organize Pop's end of the shed...and trying, and trying. Pop will return anything he borrows from John's toolbox or shop back to it - so maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks. If so, I want to teach him to retreive my three tape measures and multi-tip screwdriver and channel locks that he took out of the kitchen drawer.....

Unc and Pop built a hydraulic splitter for the tractor some years back that has made life much easier; before that I used a monster maul for splitting whole logs and a hatchet for kindling. Still have my all-metal monster maul, though I split very little wood anymore. Used to break the handles out of the wooden ones until I got the all metal one - more $$ but worth it.

We're still fighting the air conditioner battle around here - I turn it off,the guys turn it on, I turn it off.... The hummingbirds are flocking to the feeders in droves, so they may be getting ready to head south, we usually get a frost shortly after they leave.

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), September 10, 2000.

I would think that giving the boys a choice of chopping all of the fire wood with a hatchet or buying a new ax out of their own money, however earned, would prevent massive amounts of tool loss, especially if they find the danged thing two days after they buy the new one. You could then return the new axe for something YOU want.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), September 10, 2000.

Never chopped a piece of wood in my life! Traded the guy at the rental store, two days of work, for 3 days 'rental' of the log splitter(off season)! Works for me!

-- Kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), September 10, 2000.

We ahve had a fire at the end of june and again at the end of aug and the begining of Sept .What a weird year !

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), September 10, 2000.

My husband won't let me use a chainsaw so I have to wait for him to cut the logs into stove size. I can split them and haul them (new ATV)but not cut. So...I'm looking to hire someone to cut up my wood for the winter.

I'm terrible, I leave everything out in the rain. I keep thinking I'll do more work tomorrow, then tomorrow it rains. I did put yellow tape on my fence plyers though. It was hard seeing them in the weeds and woods while I was using them.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), September 10, 2000.

We have been splitting wood most of the last couple of weeks. Mostly my husband splits (he's faster but I'm catching up slowly.) I get the task of stacking, which I like (it's kind of an engineering thing). We are splitting alder, which isn't too hard. If I get a hard piece that I can't split, I just save it for him. If he can't split it, we use a series of wedges (usually more for maple) and a maul. I like splitting wood if I can get some kind of rhythm going.

I thought about a woodstove fire last night, but I wrapped up in a blanket instead. The cold will be here soon enough, and if it were this temperature in SPRING, I would be rejoicing, and probably wearing shorts! (or more likely, wondering where they were packed away!)

And....we misplaced our hatchet last year, and had to buy a new one. Found it in spring, under a pile of stacked firewood. Guess I need new glasses?

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), September 10, 2000.

Since the ironing board disappeared years ago (we're almost positive we've seen it since we moved here) I can't say much for how to get the kids to put things back. Maybe ground them until the wood is chopped? That would get them looking for the axe. Eventually they might even figure out that if they put it somewhere sensible when they're done with it, they can get the next batch of wood chopped up in a hurry.

I use a maul to split wood, very occasionally an axe to split kindling, but we save corn cobs, wood shingles and MY HUSBAND FINALLY ADMITTED I WAS RIGHT and we cut (and bother with) small branches. So we don't need much specially chopped kindling. We have found that except for lengths of trees that we will saw for lumber, we take the little bit of extra time on site to cut everything to stove length. It has to be done at some point anyway. It is just a matter of starting limbing by cutting off the brush, then whacking the limbs into stove-lengths, then the trunk. One of us will cut on the tree for a while, then move to the other side so the other person can get in safely and load the brush and stove wood that has been cut. We get a lot more wood out of the tree and it makes it quick and easy to open up the area around the tree to work. When we get home, it is quick unloading-brush to the burn pile, saw logs to that pile, the few long lengths that weren't cut on site for some reason (very few) to their pile, the base of the tree is on the end of the pickup bed or trailer and that stuff is rolled onto the splitting pile, everything else is stacked to dry. It really reduces the amount of extra handling and work we have to do. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), September 11, 2000.

Cheryl:

The blade sharpening tool I referred to earlier is technically a 4" Angle Grinder. Harbor Freight Tools (800-423-2567) has them for $19.99. Harbor Freight is another good source of cheap import tools. Both they and Northern will send you enough catalogs to keep you in kindling paper all winter.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 11, 2000.

2 weeks ago we had a fire for a couple of days but no frost, now it is back in the high 80s and is suppose to be over 90 today. I have painted my tool handles for years, as well as log chains, chain binders, chainsaw tools, anything that may be dropped in the woods or snow. I use to use a 5-1/2 lb. axe with a 36" handle to split firewood, I never cared for the mauls and most axes are to light, Now I buy my wood split, still have that monster axe tho.

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), September 12, 2000.

Sequel: Once more I have had a leaking pipe problem. It seems that I have a penchant for choosing old houses with bad plumbing. Anyway, with the basement flooded and the water turned off yesterday, I stood on the steps of the garage (really have to get that place clean and organized before winter)directing the boys to where the canners and stock pots etc were so that we could fill them with extra water, and do I see? Exactly where I put it last spring when cleaning the garage and where I told them to look? You guessed it! The infamous ax! Boy, did they look sheepish and feel stupid. It serves them right to have had to spilt all that wood with a hatchet. My youngest son however proudly held up the hatchet and asked me to admire the really wonderful job he had done when cleaning it. Thanks everyone for the ideas on splitting wood. This is wood that was given to me last year and I know my Dad used to have a splitting maul. Maybe when we clean that dratted garage, we'll find it.

-- Cheryl Cox (bramblecottage@hotmail.com), September 13, 2000.

Hmmmmmmm, has a PC but can't aford a new ax?

-- Bob (BCDEX@webtv.net), September 17, 2000.