Summertime Fun With Blaschak!

Yesterday two fine teenage lads (sons of a friend) helped me move SEVEN pallets (420 bags - 16,800lbs) of Blaschak bagged nut & stove coal from storage outside my house in the U.P. into my basement (HUGE - 2500sq ft)! Talk about a great workout! I had to smile, because by the end of the task they were wiped out. I was tired, but found it amusing that the 57 y/o outlasted the 19 and 16 y/o. When I brought that coal north in successive loads from my lower peninsula supplier (KW Feeds - Clare, MI = GREAT place to get coal at excellent price!) I stacked it outside and after nearly a year in the sun didn't want the bags to deteriorate. So we took out a basement window, made a makeshift ramp, and started the assembly line. Good day's effort! I'll be happy for several winters to come that we did this. Who says you can't have summertime fun with coal!

Good job! Thanks for sharing the story.

I used to be able to shovel about 12 ton 10 to 15 feet in about 2 hours, in other words ever piece of coal had to be thrown about 10 to 15 feet. That's about a 1000 shovels, roughly 1 every 7 seconds. That was rice coal though, never do it with nut. Also keep in mind with all those years of practice I was just as good lefty or righty. That was in my prime, I'd be lucky if I could get it done in 8 hours now.

On a side note when we went on our yearly canoeing trips I was the king rower because it's the samw motion... my buddies would be all dogging it and sore at the end of the day I wouldn't even be breaking a sweat.

The best I can do is load 2 tons of chestnut out of a pile into my F-250 in 20 minutes, but then I'm ready to drive home enjoying the forty minute rest, I'm 46.

Hey now stop hogging the labor. I had no idea that there were three teenagers left in the country who were not afraid of work. Be fair now, share them around.

Compare moving coal to working up wood....The general rule of thumb is that you can do any one thing to a cord of wood in one hour....cut it down, or cut it up, or split it. Stacking is a bit faster. Coal BTU's move much easier than wood BTU's!

Freddy wrote:Coal BTU's move much easier than wood BTU's!

You got that right. I grew up in a house that had required at least 15 cords of firewood per winter...and we aren't talking "face cords". For years my brother and I would get off the school bus, change our clothes, and head out to the wood pile...which was usually dumped behind the house along with snow, mud, and whatever else the loader scooped up. We would throw wood in the basement until the pile reached the window, and over the next few days we would stack it in the basement. After a week or whatever the cycle would repeat.

It is scarey when I think about how much wood we must have burned at the farm in the early 90's when the winters were so cold. Good thing grandpa loved to cut wood, he really loved it when the lake would freeze at a high level so he could fall trees on the ice and never worry about dulling a chain in the ground.

coalnewbie wrote:Hey now stop hogging the labor. I had no idea that there were three teenagers left in the country who were not afraid of work. Be fair now, share them around.

These are good lads. One a former student of mine, the other his younger brother. They LOVE getting away from the city (near Detroit) to the solitude of my 20 acre farm. I paid (and FED) them well for their effort and we had a lot of fun in the process. Sad thing is that their real and step dads pretty well ignore these fellows, so I think I fill another minor role in that regard. Hard work, fresh air, and turning the job into a lesson in physics was fun for all. We slept well too at night!

IMO your doing right with those kids, good job Dennis.

Great job Dennis ,as our teen age grandson stays with us during the summer months out in the country also and helps out with the different projects that need to get done . He is such a great lad and not such a great life at his home with his step dad . Tears come to my grandsons eyes when he has to leave us and mine too .

Great job! I just drove home from Wisconsin through the U.P. What a beautiful area you live in!