Salvation is coming! It's coming in the form of a gas powered wood splitter. After talking with "the guys" at the pro shop, one offered his splitter to finish off my "unsplitables". Those are the knotty or forked chunks of wood that a hand splitter can't separate. I have about a dozen of those.

My basement is a mess. I toss my wood through a basement window into an old coal bin--one wheel barrow load per day. From there it goes into a wood burning add-on furnace. It all makes for a dirty floor. The basement itself is filled with all sorts of indescribable "stuff".

When my daughter saw it last spring, she lamented the day I die: "What am I going to do with all of this junk?"
Of course, it's not junk to me. You never know when you might need something. Besides, much of it belonged to my father and his father. Heirloom tools!

My unfinished basement has a ping pong table, a punching bag, benches (full of boxes, etc), and the usual furnaces, hot water heater, water softener, water pump and holding tank, and some original "antiques" when the house was built (1911). It also has a fruit cellar which actually is keeping pears, apples, potatoes, parsnips, and more, nice and cold.

My basement is much more than a "holding place". I spend a lot of time down there exercising, cracking walnuts, feeding the fire, sorting through food supplies, etc. Dark and dreary notwithstanding, it's quite a lovely place!