Firewood Ready for the Winter by Cliff
by Embrace Country Life on 10/14/13As with every year at Mountain Breeze Acres, we order a 22 ton load of logs from John Wagner (see the web site for his contact info). This year John gave us a nice variety of hardwood (oak, maple, beech, cherry, and some ash). As they say, firewood warms you many times, cutting, splitting stacking and burning it. We start out cutting the logs into chunks about 16 inches in length. I use my 20 inch bar Stihl MS 391 chainsaw to cut the logs. It really rips through the wood. My process includes sharpening the chain with a file every other tank full of gas. This ensures the chain saw is spitting out nice big pieces of saw dust.
I usually cut a few logs, move the chunks of wood near the woodshed and use the Husky gas log splitter to split the wood into burnable sizes and toss them into a pile to be stacked in the woodshed.
I purposely do not calculate the amount of time spent on this process for fear of realizing that I spend way too much time on it. Thus, I simply focus on the fact that I enjoy spending some time outside physically working hard to accomplish something that will benefit my family, save some money (heating with wood instead of burning fuel oil), using a renewable resource for heating purposes, and spending quality time with my family as we stack the wood in the woodshed. This is the most enjoyable part of the process. As we stack the wood, we have some profound conversations regarding life, school, friends etc. I cherish those times!
What's really neat about processing your own firewood is that you gain the opportunity to add more equipment (toys as my wife calls them) to the farm. Chain saws, safety gear (including hardhat with built in ear muffs and eye protection), log roller, files, log splitter and the Kawasaki Mule for bringing the firewood to the house in the winter. It's awesome! Additionally, I really enjoy burning the wood in our Vermont Castings wood stove. We rarely have the need to turn on our fuel oil baseboard hot water boiler before November 1st.
The 22 ton of logs provides us with 7 to 8 cord of fire wood (one cord is 24 feet long, 4 feet high and 16 inches wide). From fall to spring, we will burn almost all of the firewood that we processed over the summer. The boiler only comes on when its really cold and when we are not home to keep the wood fire going. Throughout the cold months, burning firewood easily saves us at least $2k a year in fuel oil spending. We also use the sawdust from the chain saw as bedding in the barn. So I guess all of those hours cutting, splitting, stacking and bringing the wood to the house is worth it in more ways than one!
Sarah is putting the finishing touches on the wood splitting video and the chimney cleaning video. They will be available soon on the Embrace Country Life video page. Be sure to check them out.
I'm actually writing this blog next to the wood stove this evening. They say firewood warms you many times....All I care about now is staying warm on a cool fall evening next to our wood stove...I sit here cherishing the time I was able to spend outside with Deb, Alicia, Sarah and Julia. We accomplished something that benefits the family and the environment.
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