The stack of logs piled high on the back of the North Ingalls Street lot, just off the alley, is gradually shrinking. Chalk up another win for the wheelchair woodcutter.

“They say handicapped people can’t do anything, that they should be in the nursing home. I’m going to prove them wrong,” says Norman Manweiler.

Manweiler, retired from 18 years with the City of Powell Streets Department, is a diabetic and had his left leg amputated in January of 2019.

His leg was removed, but not his spirit.

About two weeks ago, Manweiler had a truckload of logs roughly 20 feet long delivered to his property — enough to cut into 15 cords of firewood. A wood stove is his primary source of heating.

Manweiler recalls that the man who delivered the logs was in disbelief that an amputee working from a wheelchair would tackle the job.

The 79-year-old Manweiler accepts the challenge: “It’s work, but it’s got to be done.”

He uses an electric chainsaw with a 20-inch bar; he can’t use a gas-fueled chainsaw because it upsets his pacemaker.

Manweiler estimates he will cut and split the 15 cords in three to four weeks. His daughter, Lisa, marks the logs into cuts of about 18 inches. He cuts them and then carries them to the log splitter one at a time, with the aid of a tong device that holds them on a mini step of the wheelchair.

He operates the log splitter from his chair, and daughter Lisa stacks the cut wood neatly. She’s on 24-hour oxygen.

Manweiler looks at the growing wood stack as “money in the bank.” That’s next winter’s wood, he says. He has wood already cut and dried for the coming winter of 2020-21.