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Firewood Keeps You Warm

rusty6

rusty6

Well-known Member
Location
East central Sask.
This photo from 1930 shows the hired man working at a neighbour's place cutting up poplar logs for firewood. He is using what we called a "bucksaw" and it would be a good way to keep warm I'd say. Usually they'd run a tractor or portable engine driven buzz saw with a crew of neighbours to do the job in a day. But if the wood pile got low sometimes the old bucksaw needed to fill in the gap.
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Neat, I just saw a show on tv called my 600 pound life? His the hell does one get that big? We need to go back to those days like this guy! Lol.
 
Wasn't the sawhorse cradle called a "sawbuck"? When I was a kid and at an auction with Pa he bought a pile off the bale wagon as he wanted a particular item. Included in pile was an old bucksaw. He gave the saw to me. I took it apart and sanded it down and repainted it. I must have been only about 6 or 7 yr. old. So I've kept it for 57,58 yrs. Brought it with me everytime I moved. I bought the home place 24 yrs. ago and brought it back here. I now proudly have it hanging on the pump-house wall.
 
Yes, I think I have heard the term "sawbuck" for the device used to hold the logs. And for sure you never saw fat people back in those times. Plenty of hard work and not much money. Everybody smoked roll your own cigarettes , ate all the fat and salt they wanted. Most lived to a pretty good old age.
 
Wondering what type of trees do you guys prefer for firewood? We prefer dead red Elm here. Lots of them been dead and dying for the several years. Thank for posting that picture. Mom told me just last week she and dad cut firewood for people before he went to WW2. Folks came around and paid them after the war was over. Wonder how many of today's people would do that.
 
(quoted from post at 21:17:45 02/25/17) Wondering what type of trees do you guys prefer for firewood? We prefer dead red Elm here. Lots of them been dead and dying for the several years. Thank for posting that picture. Mom told me just last week she and dad cut firewood for people before he went to WW2. Folks came around and paid them after the war was over. Wonder how many of today's people would do that.
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Its a different world for sure. My dad talked about guys cutting sleigh loads of firewood and hauling it to town for a dollar a load! And that was cutting with an axe! I know a little about that work and the labour involved. I'd want at least a dollar a tree :)
We have mostly poplar here so thats what is used. Some maple is good if it is well dried but we only have what we trim out of the hedges as maple does not grow wild here.
 
I like wild cherry which we have a lot of in this area . But do burn oak and right now burning a lot of ash because of that bore that kills them.
 
That's a neat picture. I've still got a buck saw that my grandpap used. I've also got most of the parts for a pto powered cross cut saw. It was probably from a more recent time, 1950's maybe?

I will burn just about anything in the boiler. I prefer hickory, walnut, pecan and any type of oak but elm, hackberry, or ash is OK. Anything else gets burned in a gully.
 
I put in a lot of time on a crosscut and a buck saw in my younger days,we'd cut the wood into long lengths we could load on a wagon and take it too the woodpile where we used a cordwood or cut off saw to saw into stove lengths.
 
I like your photo Rusty , would fit right in with pictures from my Dad's family collection here in Ontario. Although no one would burn poplar, so many hard wood trees, and a load like on the wagon would be limb wood from Beach and Maple trees. Dad had a drag saw for "bucking " blocks off of the logs , and the limb wood was brought back to the yard and put through the "circular saw" , powered by a tractor. Of course , in the days before the circular saw , they cut the limb wood just like in the picture. Dad said they always wanted to have a pile like that sitting in the yard , just in case a slow time came along , and he needed to find some thing to keep the hired man busy . My mothers folks in soth Sask. burnt soft coal only , not too muh bush land around Macoun .
 
I like your photo Rusty , would fit right in with pictures from my Dad's family collection here in Ontario. Although no one would burn poplar, so many hard wood trees, and a load like on the wagon would be limb wood from Beach and Maple trees. Dad had a drag saw for "bucking " blocks off of the logs , and the limb wood was brought back to the yard and put through the "circular saw" , powered by a tractor. Of course , in the days before the circular saw , they cut the limb wood just like in the picture. Dad said they always wanted to have a pile like that sitting in the yard , just in case a slow time came along , and he needed to find some thing to keep the hired man busy . My mothers folks in south Sask. burnt soft coal only , not too muh bush land around Macoun .
 
I'm glad I don't need to cut the osage orange we burn with a bucksaw!

It's kind of ironic that many of today's modern conveniences are designed to reduce physical effort but now we're out of shape and need gym memberships to try to stay healthy and strong. I'm guessing that the guy in the picture was as strong as an ox but probably never had to "work out" to stay in shape.
 
IMHO - got to believe the advent (or maybe it should be "invent") of the chainsaw saved a lot of lives.
 
Larry,
Didn't you have a remote back then? Back in the day a remote was a long stick we used to change the channels with by twisting the tuner knob.
geo
 
I never used a bucksaw but have plenty of hours on axe and splitting maul, not to mention pick and shovel.
 
I've played around with a buck saw and a 2 man cross cut saw. Lots of times around here they are part of the odds and ends pile at auction. When I was a scout leader I'd take the saws to events and let the boys cut some wood. Fun watching kids try to make a cross cut saw work - they always want to push instead of pull on it. Occasionally there would be a couple of scouts that knew what they were doing and could do some serious wood cutting.Wood is great at keeping you warm - when you cut it, when you split it, when you stack, when you burn it.
 
There's a saw similar to that hanging in my Dads garage. My grandfather threw it away and Dad went and got it,apparently Dad told him he wanted it as a keep sake and my grandad told him to try running it for a day and see how he feels about it than lol
 
Can you imagine? Especially if the hedge (as we call it in NEKS) had been down and dried as a tree. Those just about work a saw to death. I can't imagine burning anything else, though. Two pieces will heat my whole house all night. There's an all nighter from last night still in the stove burning along right now.
 

I have several 1 and 2 man crosscuts, buck saws and bow saws. I suppose I keep them more for nostalgia than anything, but I do have one buck saw that has the best green wood blade I've ever used. You can keep up with a Swede style bow saw with that one.

Wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if people had to start working for their heat like we do. You get to the point where pretty much anything in the way of a hardwood (deciduous) becomes fair game. Some people scoff at the idea of burning popple or soft maple. Not here. It all burns when it's split and dried!
 
I can remember doing similar with the slabs from the old sawmill. Pine, Popple whatever made good kindling.
 
(quoted from post at 05:40:04 02/26/17) looks like they were all cut down with an ax, so he really got a work-out
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Definitely all axe cut in those days. A good man on a sharp axe could take down a good sized poplar surprisingly fast. 20 loads like the one in the picture was typical to last the year round. My Grandpa and 2 uncles cooked on a wood stove right up til 2002 when the last uncle died. Always cut the dead wood as it was lighter to handle and plentiful most years.
I took this photo in 2000 after we had put in a day or two of sawing logs into stove length. We were down to a 2 man crew. Two to hold the log and one to throw away from the saw. Good times but I would not want to do it for a living.
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"Wasn't the sawhorse cradle called a "sawbuck"?

Yes, sawbuck was the term....that's why they call a ten dollar bill a sawbuck....X for ten looks like a sawbuck.

I have a nice buck saw and a whole bunch of two-man crosscut saws as well as a one-man cross cut saw.

When I was a kid back in the 40s my Dad and older brother buzzed wood on a buzz saw but the trees were cut with a crosscut....lucky for me I was too young to be involved with that. There was always a buck saw hanging in by the door to the woodshed but as I recall, it was used mostly for cutting up fallen dead maple limbs which we had quite a lot of.

I think using a two-man crosscut saw is almost an art and when done properly (with a sharp saw) is reasonably efficient.
 
I like that picture - reminds me of my dad. I have a bucksaw and several crosscuts hanging on the shop wall.

When my older brothers were in high school, many of their buddies were on the football team. They'd come out to the farm, and dad would joke with them and call them "Heroes". He'd say, "One of you heroes grab the other end of this crosscut and show me how tough you are". Never bet on another man's game. Dad was tall and had real long arms, and he'd work them until they couldn't breath. By then there'd be another one wanting to try to put the old man down. He got a lot of wood cut real quick, and they had fun doing it. Dad was 66 years old then, but used to the crosscut and could make it sing. He didn't like me on the other end - I was too young, and he'd holler, "Quit riding it". If you have to shift your feet, you won't keep up.
 
(quoted from post at 09:46:41 02/26/17) I like that picture - reminds me of my dad. I have a bucksaw and several crosscuts hanging on the shop wall.

When my older brothers were in high school, many of their buddies were on the football team. They'd come out to the farm, and dad would joke with them and call them "Heroes". He'd say, "One of you heroes grab the other end of this crosscut and show me how tough you are". Never bet on another man's game. Dad was tall and had real long arms, and he'd work them until they couldn't breath..
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Great story. I've got one of those long blade cross cut 2 man saws here as well but I've never used it. Maybe I'll get a set of handles made up for it to try it out.
 
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