Lumberjacks in training

Last week, when all of the family was gathered, the two boys and I took an early morning trip to the farm, where a couple of oak trees had died. Rather than let them go to waste, we cut the oaks into logs with the chain saw and then hauled the results back to the woodpile behind the garage.

The arrival of the truck with the load of oak caused the two oldest grandkids, 12 and 11, to come out back and watch us as we unloaded what would soon be some fireplace heat for the upcoming winter. It was then they spied the two mauls and asked, "Can we help split the wood?"

Since the biggest of the two mauls is a 12-pound monster maul, it was out of the question, but the smaller of the two mauls was more their size, and they soon gave it a try. At first, it was an exercise in seeing how many different spots they could hit on a chunk of log, but with some instruction, they soon managed to see some progress. I had visions of them whacking their toes, so we managed to keep them under supervision while they were working.

The 3-year-old grandson showed up on the scene and announced that he wanted to help. Before long, we had a regular assembly line; the two oldest kept splitting the logs and the 3-year-old was carrying the results and stacking them, all the while saying, "I'm strong. I know how carry wood."

Thinking they would soon tire of this "fun," I went back to the house and left the boys in charge. For approximately three hours they hammered away in the back yard, and by the end of the afternoon, they had pretty well made kindling out of the oak logs.

Later in the week, I went to Garnett to watch one of their soccer games and was met with the request, "Grandpa, can you bring some logs up here?"

Sounds like I might have a couple of lumberjacks in the making.