The Firewood Season

So, it's that time of year again,
when I complain about not getting the firewood done.
Each year is the same; I put it off for any number of reasons, and find myself scrambling to the get the wood in.
In all fairness, we never go cold.
But it would be nice to have dry wood on hand all of the time.

We burn from September to the end of May.
Whenever it's cold, cool, or just damp, we light the fire for comfort.
More recently, we have been using the woodstove more for cooking.
There is nothing as comforting as a hearth fire.
So we take advantage of our stove and fuelwood whenever we wish.
Of course, there needs to be wood to burn.

Take a quick look in the woodshed and you will find lots of chickens,
but no wood.
It's been like this for years; the woodshed simply makes a better coop than wood storage.
There is wood out in the forest that I felled last year,
I just need to go and get it....
.....and buck it.....
.....and split it......
.....and stack it....
Oh! And build a new woodshed too, because we have decided to keep the old woodshed as permanent chicken housing.

Here, me an' Diego got some splittin' to do!

Sure glad I don't have his job!

The new splitter from my cousins should help us out quite a bit.
Normally, I build up a pile of wood,
then rent a splitter and do everything over a weekend.
This way, I can build the splitting into a routine.
Once I have everything set up, it really doesn't take too long to put the wood in.
Only now it's cold outside,
so we're grabbing whatever we can from around the yard.
It sure helps that we have a building project underway.
The lumber off-cuts are going straight to the woodstove.

I need to get the process going this week.
That way, I can do a little bit everyday instead of doing a major blitz in November.
Doing the wood is hard work, but fun work.
It doesn't take any calculating or problem solving skills,
other than keeping the log skidding organized.
At this time of year, there's no better place to work than in the woods.
It's quiet and cool as the forest takes a breath of fresh air after a scorching summer.

So maybe I'm not complaining about doing the wood at all.
I'm just looking forward to getting to it.