Sunday 29 March 2015

Making Kindling On Our Irish Smallholding.

 My brother gave me a trailer load of an Escallonia hedge yesterday.  He had dug it out for somebody and I decided it would make kindling.
Yes folks.  If anybodies got a Sisyphus complex it's me.  You know that Greek bloke who was damned to carry huge stones up hills for eternity.  What could be better than getting your trusty loppers and making foot long pieces of kindling for the range?  I just do 4 wheelbarrows a day and then go off and do something else.  I do the same when I am spreading muck.

It's a bit like Karl Marx said: "to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle, in the evening, criticize after dinner."  Not forgetting to stagger home drunk along the Tottenham Court Road.

Call me a tight wad.  But there's something satisfying about making your own kindling.  Do you make kindling and do you do a bit and then do something else?  If I had my own smallholding and allotments party.  Everybody would work 3 days a week and the rest of the time could be spent on the allotment and smallholding.  Don't see why everybody can't have a job.  Do you?

14 comments:

  1. You are not alone Dave. I do this with the loppers. My brother often brings hedging stuff like this to me and I lop it up for kindling. You cant beat it. In fact, if the weather hadn't been so bad here this afternoon I was going out to do the very same thing. I lop it and then put it in empty sacks (which he also brings me) and lo and behold, I have kindling to llight the woodburner. I used to chop kindling for my mother and still have her chopper, and use it, bought over 50 years ago.

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    1. Who needs Kindle when you can make kindling Rachel? It was a good way to pass a boring Saturday afternoon with no Premiership to watch on the telly.

      Thanks!

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  2. I use mainly good bits from old pallets that we get for free and we have some sides of an old shed waiting to be cut and made into kindling soon.
    Some people buy kindling in neat little bags from a supermarket - HA HA HA!

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    1. You sound like us SSS. I break old furniture up and burn it in the range. We have even been known to collect driftwood from the local beaches. It takes ages to dry out. Thanks!

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  3. Since moving to this house last may, with its real fire, kindling and wood collection have become an slight obsession of mine Dave. And being still a pirate at heart I'll be buggered before I pay for any of the stuff.
    John

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  4. Howdy Captain pirate John. I don't blame you for becoming a wood collector. I went to Warsaw last July and saw a little old lady collecting pine cones and kindling in the woods for her fire.

    Thanks!

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    1. I have to confess to having a pine cone collection as well!!!!!

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    2. Good on you John. I enjoy reading about your walks.

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  5. I do lots of hobs like that. I've so far grafted 115 apple trees and done about 15 at a time as then it gets a bit repetitive. As for kindling I make all my own, normally from offcuts from jobs I've done.

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    1. Hi Kev. Yes it's good to make the jobs less repetitive but at the same time always have projects on the go. Thanks!

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  6. When I had my open fire it was a regular event to collect vast quantities of driftwood for it, the shore-line also provided masses of suitable kindling. When I was a lad (yes I know, nostalgia) I could earn my pocket money chopping up fruit boxes and making bundles of kindling to hawk round the doors at 3d a bundle.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Cumbrian. I heard of lad in West Cork who breaks up pallets and sells them for kindling. Years a go in Galway they use to grow fields of 'Furze' or Gorse just for firewood. Thanks!

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  7. We live on the edge of a common and one stormy night a tree came down. Now we can apply for commoners rights to collect firewood but t's too much bureaucracy so my other half went out under the cover of darkness and used a hand axe to sever the rest of the trunk and pulled it though the common to our house. It took about 2 hours and he couldn't see where he was going. All for free wood!! We're obsessed and we NEVER buy kindling.

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  8. Hi Kirsty. Sounds like us. We are always got some silly project on the go that would be more suited for heavy horses. Only the other night we split a tractor in 2 halves to replace a rubber seal. Worked all day in the mud and rain clearing an are yesterday. Felt absolutely knackered but also content at what we achieved. Thanks for telling me about: Operation Firewood.

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