Pallet Whacking

   After a fun winter of backyard activities, our pile of firewood "went missing", got depleted. Since the driftwood along the Mississippi riverbank was not available 'cause of a rising river due to the usual Spring snowmelt up north, I moved to my Springtime wood source: the local feed and seed store around the corner from our house. They get lots of truckloads of inventory for their warehouses in the Spring, which generates a big pile of pallets that they don't want. 
   I do business with them and sometimes walk over just to say "Hi", or bring them some citrus. In return, I have access to their excess pallets. Peggy and I rounded up seventeen of their pallets and went to whacking them up into pieces.

I started whacking them up with a circular saw, which worked good, but got boring after a while so I whooped out my recip saw and went to town on them. See this little video (it's kinda hard to see the 'start arrow' in the middle of the picture)

   Peggy commented, while she was holding them steady for me to cut, that the noise was so loud, she started singing an old tv cowboy show song, "Pallet Din".
 After one afternoon's work, I had a pretty good pile of firewood.

Beaux the Brat enjoyed watching the work from the safety of the grape arbor. Instead of the chairs, he opted for the glass top table, (needs cleaning, Peg sez) for a better view.

Jolie' came over after I was finished to offer support and seemed to say, "Good job, Dad." ( 'at's my opinion, anyhow)

So, for the past few weeks we have really been enjoying our firepit as we play and work in the yard and Spring gardens.

After cutting the grass yesterday afternoon I was thrilled to see my sweet wife Peggy firing up da ol' firepit for me as I put the mower away.

We sat there enjoying the rest of the day; me and my dawgs and my wife. 

It's times like these that makes the effort worth it.  We sat long into the night With Lynyrd Skynyrd playing on my portable speaker, reveling in the Spring evening, with a nice cold beer or two to refresh my palate after refreshing my pallet pile.