It's crazy ridiculous to do so, and it takes forever, but I've even split a foot-diameter tree with some little rocks and sticks. Can't tell you what kind of tree it was, lots of honey locust in that area (Kentucky) but I don't think that's what it was. Scored a line in the cut base with a palm sized sharp rock, and bit by bit hammered in little thin rocks with a branch made into a club. It was a millimeter by millimeter affair, wedging each little bit I got. A tiny crack running the diameter, put some rocks in, and wedge in further. Eventually had a finger sized stick up in it across the diameter, then you know the rest. In this particular case, at some point I heard a crack and yippee it gave several feet on it's own. Don't know if that part is unusual or not.
It might be just a personal idiosyncrasy of mine, but I prefer a tree saw, not the bow kind, over an axe or even a chainsaw. I had my own full time yardscaping business once for 10 years, and I've felled foot-diameter trees with just a saw in not much more time than with a chainsaw. Never had a chainsaw - more weight, mechanical maintenance, cost, fuel...over a little saw with no moving parts. Easy choice for me. I just personally know how to work that thing and get an amount of work done in a short time that seems incredible to people, and not with that much sweat either.
I might be proud to say that I don't think that I even know any white collar people, but I can relate. Never liked the idea of working a job then spending some of that money to pay to work out in a gym on my personal time because I got no physical activity at my job. I've always tried to combine the two - a job which is physical and outdoors to some extent. At my present job the rest are content to sit indoors in the air conditioning while I'm outside doing little things that need to be done even under the summer sun in the afternoon...because I can rarely sit still anyway.
Used to LOVE canoeing down the Illinois river up around Tahlequah here in OK and camp overnight there, did it constantly. Haven't been there in a whileAnd I'd take twice as long to get down the river than you're supposed to...just not in a hurry, I take it all in and explore. It's a relatively tame river, at least that stretch of it, but that allowed me to meander. That's what I liked...
...Anyway...one time I came across a place where a huge tree had fallen over across from bank to bank, where it was too deep to touch bottom, and close to maybe a dozen canoes were stuck and all mixed up in this thing, all the guys and their gals standing around on the bank wondering what to do. It was like a Chinese puzzle, canoes interlocked with the branches and each other every which way, the strength of the current locking it all into place. Well, I only wanted to help. Didn't think at the time that it was a big deal to do what I did. I beached my canoe, and began freeing the canoes. Barefoot out along the tree to a certain point, figure out how to get one lose with technique when the brute strength that would've been required was 3 times what I had, me having an average to light build. Wade into the current among the branches in just the right way and puzzle a couple more free. Then walk back, go up stream, then swim out and let the current carry me to just the right point, and get another couple free.
At about this time it dawned on me how crazy it must've looked, what I was doing. The folks on the bank really staring. And 2 then a 3rd guys made their way out towards me, very reluctantly. The guys of the crowd were twice my size, and unselfconscious me eventually became aware that maybe I was showing them up. They were trying so hard to get towards me and do their part, now that they could see that No, it's not an impossible situation, but I could tell that they were scared to death. One who was working his butt off trying to free a canoe with his superior strength but couldn't get it to budge, asked me "How are you doing this?!" The best that I could do was give him some fancy jabber about working with the current, figuring out the technique like it was a puzzle, etc.
This one guy was getting a little extra daring, inspired, such that I was starting to feel bad or guilty. While I was in the water dancing with the branches and current myself, I heard a "hey" and saw a head a few feet away just barely keeping it's face over the water rushing over it. I will definitely give it to him - he was calm as all-git-out. He explained to me very calmly and soberly how he could not get out and was a little tangled and couldn't touch bottom and the current was too strong etc...asking me what to do like I was suddenly the guru of the moment. It seems crazy to me now, but at the time I just "knew" what he could do and that it would work. I told him to just take a breath and relax, let go and ball his whole body up, and just let the current take him and suck him under...then after he could tell, while under water, that things were calm and he was clear, to just float and swim to the surface then make his way back to the river bank. Next thing I know he's on the bank a little ways downstream and is just fine, walking back up towards us...
...anywho, this is a case when I figure that all of those folks were the air conditioned gym types play-camping, the types who probably tip their own canoes out of panic, leaning the wrong way, when nothing is even happening.
Spent a winter at another place in the sticks once, and it was up to me to keep up firewood for the iron wood stove (managing wood and using a stove properly is an art all it's own). But they didn't have much to start that winter with, and someone's elderly sister with down's syndrome was visiting for a while, so against all proper stove usage I was told "keep that thing blazing all of the time and keep her warm"...
...being conservation-minded, though I harvested standing dead trees, once I found one already fallen, dead and seasoned but fresh and intact wood otherwise, about 2 1/2 feet in diameter for about a hundred feet of it's height (length) at least. This thing was lying at around 150 feet down a slope, sloping down to the river (mountainous country), at a good 45 degrees and steeper consistently the whole way. No joke. But I couldn't resist. I did of course break out the chainsaw for this one. Fired that sucker up and got to work. Sliced it up into maybe 2 foot long lengths, turning them so they wouldn't roll away or resting them against a sapling. My plan was to use the saplings that covered the slope, and just move careful and one step at a time. I'd roll one uphill, a bit at a time, strategically, using a sapling or big rock (was rocky terrain also) for myself and the log for each step. Heh, this was actually fun for me. And don't laugh. After getting them to the top of the slope, then it was a dirt road which itself had a bit of a downgrade, about a quarter of a mile to the house. Rolled 'em right down in pairs with a guiding stick like herding little sheep. Eventually I had a good collection of them at the woodpile, then broke out the splitter (no darned little rocks and sticks for this one). Lots of splitting, swing after swing, and got a good little mountain of firewood out of it...
...anywho...again, others were content to chill, and think that firewood in a virtual blizzard was impossible (not much snow on the ground during this particular activity, arg!), but I was out there gettin'er done for 'bout 5 months of winter effectively. Sigh. Loved it. Good times.
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