The Axmen of Hawksbill Hop Yards

With absolutely no tongue in cheek, David invited me out to help for a little while with clearing the hop yards.  Recognizing that the source of any value I am creating in society these days consists of being sure that there is no circular reference down there in Excel spreadsheet cell d43, or in pressing send on one of 30-odd emails a day, I was a little worried about this.

I let David know that I had never really used a maul or chainsaw before, and that the last time I had seriously used an ax (I do have one, by the way, out in the shed) was when I was certifying on woodsman skills for my tenderfoot rank in scouts.  Then I asked him if he would have ibuprofen handy in my preferred brand, Midol - he assured he would take care of that.

We agreed we'd work on this part of the project for a couple of hours, and I think we busted out about half of the trees he'd set aside to save for firewood (at least the ones that he had not already taken care of by the time we got there).  While I did pick up the maul eventually and learned how to use it, I decided the best value for my effort would be moving the logs he had chainsawed down to size over to the chopping area, and then picking up the firewood and putting it in the wagon, seen above with about a cord or so loaded up.

Chris also got in the act, so with all three of us contributing to the work (I'm not shy about this, David did the most and Chris did a heck of a lot more of it than I did) - we managed to get photos of everybody swinging an ax or maul.  Readers are invited to offer comments on the various techniques on display in the photos below:

Yes, part of the comparison is the respective piles of lumber around these workers as well.  In case that is not clear in the photos, it's four for me, about a dozen for Chris, and 90% of a cord for David.