Gathering wood tedious activity for nonwoodchucks

Just how much wood could a woodchuck chuck is unspecified. Probably as much as he could, which is more than I can say.

After a couple of afternoons chucking maple and birch logs, I had tired of the tedious activity. In fact, I had tired, period.

You would too if you really thought about it. The green wooden wheelbarrow – a garden variety with removable sides – has to be loaded 26 times to cart a cord of wood from the pile to the woodshed.

Thronk, whop, one after another 2-foot stick is tossed into the wheelbarrow until it is filled and carefully rolled – the one wheel better not wobble off – up the ramp and into the shed. Thronk, whop, clug, one after another log is stacked into rows that slowly rise and take their tidy shape.

Bend, lift the stout piece of maple into the next slot, making sure the wood fits neatly, tightly together as if building a miniature Lincoln Log house. Empty the wheelbarrow, drag it back over the ramp and up the path toward the woodpile … which doesn’t appear to be shrinking. Six cords of wood are strewn on the ledges out back, a daunting mound to tackle, especially if you think about it.

Twenty-six wheelbarrows to the cord is all I can fathom. I can’t envision 4-by-4-by-8, nor what 128 cubic feet is. What I figure is 156 wheelbarrows to load and unload, thronk, whop, log smacking against log, back bending, arms tugging, hands lifting. The wheelbarrow makes its trek from the pile to the shed, and the rows of stacked firewood climb.

The woodshed – 14 feet long, 10 feet wide and 7 feet tall – holds 980 cubic feet of wood; that is, if the logs are round, which some of them are. Most of the wood, however, is split, and that means the angular logs take one-fourth less room in rows than do the round logs. In other words, the woodshed holds 7.65 cords of round wood or 9.5 cords of split wood.

Mind you, these are 24-inch logs. Don’t even think about having to stack rows upon rows of 16-inch ones, half-againing the number of wheelbarrow loads it would take.

Thronk, clug, whop, more birch is piled into the woodshed as I shake bits of bark from my gloves and stretch my arms. I’m wondering how much longer it will take to fill the woodshed to its brim.

And then, even worse, about how many trips from the shed to the house it will take to fuel the stove, which holds 70 pounds crammed full and will burn about 14 hours.

Now, the wood box at the side of the house only holds two wheelbarrows full of wood. That will heat the house for 11/2 days in cold weather.

So, when I think about 156 wheelbarrows from the pile to the woodshed, then another 156 wheelbarrows from the shed to the wood box, I’m so tired out all I want to do is back up next to a good warm fire. What started out to be an invigorating exercise that would end with an enormous sense of accomplishment ended instead with some other woodchuck chucking what he could.