Righto, the best trick I know to beat hard work is to break it up into smaller, achievable bits. So after I'd cut a couple of agonising rings, I put the saw down and proceeded to try and split them with an axe. Back in the day, I was quite proud of my wood-splitting ability. I could load the ute deck with nice cut wood in an hour or so. Not now, though ... not now.
My first blow with the axe succeeded in bouncing off. My second got stuck in the ring and I had to lever it out. Again and again this happened as I whacked away at this stupid piece of wood until eventually I had achieved a small pile of split wood, two dislocated shoulders and a borderline heart attack.
As the day was grinding on, I made the executive decision that my mate could split his own damned wood and I would just load the rings on the trailer and drop them off to him.
I soon learned why sections of log have been given the name "rings". It is not, as I always believed, because the cuts make circular pieces of wood. No, no - it is because when you lift them your "ring" pops out of your behind. Blimmin' 'eck, they were heavy. Way heavier than I remember.
But I persisted. I lifted, dragged and shoved those pieces on the trailer. I felt like I was a labourer on the Egyptian pyramids. After a long while I had a respectable pile of wood on board, and I delivered the wood by sort of half kicking and half rolling it off the trailer in front of the woodshed.
I couldn't help but notice my pitiful pile of wood next to the gaping cavern of shed space. I remarked how large the shed was and my mate duly informed me he needed probably double that for winter. I said nothing about future wood loads. Nothing at all. Next morning I awoke ... barely. I was in that horrible state where it's too uncomfortable to lie in bed and it hurts to get up. Every part of me ached. You know that muscle just below your shoulder blade in the centre of your back? Mine was in constant spasm. It was twitching like a mongoose fighting a cobra. My lower back was refusing to bend and, for some effing reason, the muscles in the arch of my foot had gone out in sympathy with the rest.
I thought I handled the pain reasonably well but, according to the fiancee, I sat at the kitchen table and moaned solid all day while being absolutely of no use.
Postscript: Since the aforementioned trip to the hills I have successfully been back and gotten a decent load of wood. I approached it more intelligently this time, making sure my chainsaw was sharp, positioning the trailer closer to the wood I was cutting, and cutting the rings into smaller pieces so they were easier to move. I also took my mate's 18-year-old son to do all the heavy lifting. Thanks, Mason.
