A Cornucopia of Firewood

We have heated the house with wood for three decades now. That’s a lot of trees cut down, sawed into logs, split, and carried into the house. As Thoreau and others have written, firewood is very efficient, because it warms you several times—once each when you cut it, split it, haul it, and then burn it. These are all various forms of sweat equity one must invest when heating with wood. To burn good quality firewood one must do a good job of planning ahead, so that one first cuts solid wood and then gives it adequate time to dry. My success at doing so has fallen short a few times. It’s any wood burner’s ambition to have a winter’s pile of firewood neatly stacked, as much as a year ahead of time.

The last couple of years we have been blessed. An aging neighbor (older than I!) had someone come in, cut down several trees, saw them into logs, and haul them over next to his hydraulic splitter. He called and invited us to come and get the whole enchilada, as long as we split and stack him a small pile for his use. What a bargain! All we had to do was split the logs and haul them home. We ended up with nearly three years’ worth of firewood—a greater backlog (no pun intended) by far than we’ve ever enjoyed.

But all good things (as well as bad) do come to an end. This year we’ve had to go back into our own woods to cut down a few trees, saw them into logs, split them by hand, and haul them home. The amount of sweat equity called for is far greater than for what our neighbor offered. We’ve been spoiled. It’s a far scarier job too. A chainsaw is both a crucial and dangerous tool. One slip and… Trees weigh many hundreds of pounds. One slip and…

When I began this job of collecting firewood I was not yet 40. At that age one can lift heavy loads, swing a splitting maul, and still go out dancing till midnight. As I am closing in on 70, however, collecting a winter’s supply of firewood requires many more hours of effort, a hot bath to sooth my tired muscles, and no thought of dancing anywhere but to bed.

A young fellow visited us recently. He had lots of interest in and questions about the labor-intensive way we live. After he’d cased out the homestead and considered our age, he asked, “How much longer can you keep this up?” Since then we’ve chuckled repeatedly at his query. We have no definitive answer, except maybe, “Until we can’t, and we pray that that will be several years from now.”