Sawing firewood by hand.

[Toepopper]

With gasoline selling for $4.80 per gallon and 2 stroke oil admixture at an all time high, to save a little money I have decided to attempt to saw some firewood by hand using a 5' long crosscut saw as well as a bow saw. First I had to construct a sawbuck to hold the logs up off of the ground and at a comfortable height so as not to be bent over while sawing. That project took 3 hours. I tried to use the crosscut saw to buck up the first log but could not get it to start the cut without knocking over the sawbuck, even after cheating a little and making a small chainsaw kerf in the log to help start the crosscut. The teeth of the crosscut are just too big and aggressive for this type of work. On to the bowsaw which was designed for sawing up firewood. I was surprised at how well it cut through the oak logs and at how fast it cut. However, after an hour I had had enough and decided to stop and move onto another project. I figured that an hour per day of pushing this bowsaw would get me a nice pile of firewood by the time cold weather rolls around in the fall. Today I cannot even attempt any sawing as my right shoulder and side is awfully sore and I may have to reschedule my sawing chores to every third day, with the 2 days in between needed to recuperate. Sawing your firewood by hand is feasable but at my age (60) it requires a monumental amount of time, physical labor and pain. I can only hope that my body can eventually condition itself to accomplish this chore; if not then it will be back to the chainsaw.