When I was but a young lad, my Dad would bring home a trailer load of pallets from work every day. It was myself and my brothers job to break up the pallets and bring all the wood in for Dad to burn. We would lay out the pallets in 2 long lines and race down to see who could break them up their line the fastest. Pallet lumber doesn't burn very long but man does it burn HOT!! One year we bought a ton of coal thinking that would extend the burn, but you had to break that up with a sledge into little chunks or the stove would just get too hot and turn cherry red. If you threw a few rock sized chunks in the box every once in a while you could get the temp just right. It used to scare the crap out of Grandma when the coal would "pop" and rattle the burners of that old stove. My mom hated burning coal because the house always smelled like a train yard and there was always a layer of black soot all over everything!! Ahh,, the good old days!! Geof
