Burning Wood

For most of you, if you are feeling a little chilly you walk to an LCD panel on the wall and press the "up" arrow a few times. We have that option too, and choose it often enough, but we also have another; build a fire.

Several times a week we choose the latter, burning wood we harvest from our own land.

It's messy, dragging firewood into the house and ashes out. It's also time-consuming. From the time I notice a chill to the time the temperature begins to rise, a good half hour has passed. The cutting, hauling, stacking and splitting takes a minute or two as well. Although I've never tabulated, I suspect I spend four or five hours a week through the winter dealing with fires and firewood.

I have delusions of frugality, and love the concept of a free source of heat. And besides a bit of gas for the chainsaw, the wood we harvest is completely free. Just a little diesel in the tractor. Well, there was the hydraulic wood splitter I bought, and the basket for the back of the tractor to haul wood out of the forest. A few miscellaneous tools. And I'll need a new chainsaw soon, got my eye on a nice Husqvarna. So yes, basically a free source of heat.

You might wonder if it's worth it, and I sometimes wonder as well when those of you with gas logs can just turn a knob. And in fact I completely missed the terms "Vent Free Fireplace" written on the house plans. Fortunately, the contractor asked us early on about where to place the LP tank, and realized we would need a chimney instead. [You do just turn a knob, right? Because there is a nice spot behind the house for an LP tank.]

We have four racks of firewood (about a cord altogether). Each winter as we empty a rack, I cut down enough wood to fill it back up for the NEXT winter. I'm fairly confident with a chainsaw and I've gotten pretty good at felling trees (where "pretty good" means most of the time the tree falls where it wants and usually gets hung up on the way down).

I split it as we burn it, about a wagonload at a time, and yes, by "wagonload" I'm referring to the Radio Flyer variety. That lasts us about a week.

Most winter evenings we have a fire after work, and usually can warm the main living area to 71 degrees or a little higher. The furnace doesn't kick in until well after we've gone to bed. A space heater in the bedroom gets that room warm for bedtime.

These tasks add a rhythm to our days and months and year.

Or we could just go to that LCD panel on the wall and hit the up arrow a few times.

But burning wood connects us a little more solidly to the forest that surrounds us. It keeps us in tune with the world outside. It warms the home in a way that a heat pump never could.

Mostly, though, we do it for the dogs.