Firewood

When I was a child, my Aunt gave my Father a plaque with this old saying: When you cut your own firewood, you are twice warmed.  Boy is that true!  My parents heated our home with firewood and one of my chores was to split and stack it after school.  The buzzing of chainsaws cutting up the logs would fill the air every weekend.

Fast forward a few decades and I'm still splitting and stacking firewood!  When you heat with wood, the job is never far from your mind.  You're either worried about getting more for the next winter, worried about finding the time to cut and split it, or worried that you're burning through it too fast.

The first few years we would get a wood-cutting permit through the Department of Natural Resources. We would be entered into a lottery for permits and the areas we might be allowed to get the wood ranged from 10 to 100 miles away.  The areas had already been clear-cut and we would get the rejects.  Most of it was fast burning pine.

Two years ago we hired a man to deliver logs by the semi-load.  However, we still had to cut, split and stack it!  On my hubby's days off this summer he's been cutting into fireplace-sized logs.  When he was done (or too tired to cut more) we rented a splitter and spent ALL day splitting logs.  Now we just have to move it stack them into nice rows closer to the house.