re: How good are you with an ax or hammer...

quote:

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I once threw a hatchet at a tree to see if it would stick. It bounced back and hit me in the ankle.

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My son did the exact same thing with his little machete. He’s very proud that he survived a machete wound.

Can split wood with an axe when it is ready to be split. It is very cathartic, if you ain't having to do it and can not do it and still have some heat in the winter. Have cut some small trees down with an axe when I was a kid...can't imagine cutting a full sized one down with an axe.

I can drive nails, would not want to do it for a living. I can use a sledge hammer and have done so as part of my job when I was a younger man (driving ground rods, busting concrete). Wouldn't want to do it for a living now.

Have dug miles of ditches with a pick axe and a shovel which is about as brutal a way to pay your way through life as there is....also find ditch digging, when not pressed for time, to be cathartic. Used to love digging ditches when I was an apprentice electrician because it was one job no one would ever frick with you about because there was a good chance you would drag up and they might have to do it....I met what was almost my first wife digging a ditch at Southlake Mall in Atlanta. It was in mid April in the mid 1980s and the women of Atlanta had just started wearing shorts and sun dresses after winter....I was 19 years old and built like a greek god from digging ditches and other similarly demanding work...I could barely concentrate on the job at hand as wave after wave of young women walked by me into the mall....and one of them asked me I was looking at LOL.....and it was on.....I stammered and hemmed and hawed (I had some SERIOUS game LOL) and said nothing....she said it looked like I was eyeing all the young women and of course I had to fess up....we dated for about 6 months.....all resulting from digging a ditch....