Cattle and splitting firewood

Dan came and got the last four steers this afternoon.  I waited for one steer to finish peeing then I herded all of the steers into the loading corral and then loaded them into Dan's trailer.  We took it slow and had no problems.   Dan weighed them and said they weighed 2010 lbs, or 502.5 lbs each on average.  The largest steer (Curious George) was heavier than the others and we think it probably weighs 575 lbs or so.


The clouds cleared off last night and the temperature dropped to well below freezing. The coldest it has been since last March.  The larger English Walnut tree had been resisting the previous frosts but last night gave up and this morning all the remaining leaves were dead.  We had a heavy frost overnight and it took until noon to melt the frost and warm up.


With the break in the weather yesterday and today I spent some time cutting up logs and splitting them into firewood.  A few weeks ago I bought a new chainsaw as my previous chainsaw wouldn't start and I suspected the ethonol in the gas ruined that carburetor.   I bought a Husqvarna 455 Rancher 20-Inch gas-powered chain saw.  This saw has a longer bar than my old chainsaw.    The new chainsaw cuts through the logs really nice and quick.

I had some logs in the yard and cut them up.  Then I got them all split.  With all the rain we had recently the logs are still damp so I left them scattered outside so they can dry before I stack them under cover.  I'll see how this goes as the weather forecast has rain starting tomorrow and going into next week.

I have more logs to split.  I also want to cut up all the fallen trees in the pasture into logs for later splitting: one of my goals for this year before Winter arrives.

Cut but not split

Split.   (what a mess!)