I decided that the best way to celebrate independence was to take a couple of big knives outside and put them to work, preparing for a good old fashioned American BBQ.

First, the tools of the trade, and their soon-to-be victims, a pile of birch logs:





First up, the NMSFNO - I wanted to see how well it would chop, since reprofiling the edge to convex. MUCH BETTER!



This birch was HARD - it took a lot of effort to chop it, with any of the blades. The NMSFNO was still shaving sharp after doing some chopping...


It did much better with batoning with the new edge too...



And now the SoD. Good knife for splittin' logs!



And she still shaved hair afterwards


And the M9LE. Have I mentioned this wood was tough? Notice how the blade is bending from the massive knot at the base of this log





Gotta use all that wood for SOMETHING...



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While we wait for that to burn down a bit, let's check out the tools of the trade again...

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2500/3688193549_ce90692b42_o.jpg[/img]

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Now what could that be up in the corner there????
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Now THAT's the stuff!!!! Thick New York Strip... (you might notice that there's some charcoal under the meat here - I started the fire too early, and we decided we wanted to wait until later to eat - the fire had burned down too much by the time we were ready, and I had to add some fuel <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif" alt="" />

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2491/3688170737_91326ec385_o.jpg[/img]

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And the results of all that hard work....

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