At a thermostat reading of twenty degrees, the propane heat is still a little chilly. This is a 150 year old house with little insulation and many ways for wintery air to get in. When the wood stove is on and the thermostat is reading twenty degrees, I am very comfortable. Somehow, wood heat at the same temperature as propane heat feels warmer.
I am as happy as can be when the fall temperatures get low enough for me to start lighting the wood stove. I love that heat. Despite all the work involved in handling firewood, I have no interest in ever giving up wood heat.
I am also happy to have the stove going because I have no electric oven and so cannot bake anything during the warmer months of the year. The casseroles get started come cool autumn weather; the water for the teapot gets heated on the surface of the stove and the teapot itself sits on a tile on the stove to stay warm all day long.
Have I said it before? I love my wood cook stove.
Did I mention this earlier? Firewood takes a lot of work.
Prior to the Never Ending Rains of October, I had managed to about half fill the woodshed with wood from the stacks at the other end of the property. During the Never Ending Rains of October, I was unable to move any wood in but was burning it at a rate much higher than usual for October. We have had five days now with no rain. And a couple more days to come if the weather forecasters are correct. I've been busy as a beaver, despite being unable to breathe thanks to the flu, moving firewood into the shed. It's nearly filled - maybe by tomorrow I'll be done as I don't want to rely on the "accuracy" of weather forecasters.
I've calculated that the shed can hold four bush cord of firewood though I try to stuff in as much in every nook and cranny as I can as four cord doesn't take me through the winter.
During my first summer in this house, I spent hours looking for someone who could supply me with firewood. I seem to be outside of the range of most of the folks who advertise in the local paper as the "local" paper originates an hour away. Finally, I managed to find someone and had him deliver two bush cord. It was September before the wood was delivered so I moved it right into the shed. And that was where the fun started.
Never having stacked firewood before, I quickly realize that spatial recognition is a great asset to have. Fortunately, I do have that to a degree. What I did find, however, was that, as I was stacking subsequent stacks of wood, I continually worried that the previous stack would somehow topple over and I would be buried. Of course, this never happened. But those two cord were stacked very very carefully. And they didn't last the winter. They were also not quite dry enough so the wood didn't burn all that well.
I managed to find a different source of wood the next spring. The fellow had a woodlot down the road and didn't deliver so I moved three bush cord of wood in the trunk of my eleven year old Toyota Corolla. What a riot! What a lot of trips in the car. I found that a single cord took twelve trips. But at least I had wood nicely stacked out in the sun to dry all summer. Okay, so maybe not so nicely stacked as I was constantly having to deal with stacks that had fallen over.
In the fall, it was time to move the wood in. There in the back of my mind continued the notion that the stacks might topple and bury me. Again, they did not. Again, the wood did not last the winter.
And so the next spring, I got four cord of wood. By now, I had a brand new Toyota Corolla. After only a minor pause to consider the implications, the new car was put into action to haul firewood. With the larger trunk, each cord required only ten trips. Several times that spring, I thought I would never make it. But the wood got moved, and it got stacked to dry.
Come the fall and time to move the wood into the shed. Here is when I realized that I needed to make each stack higher in order to be able to fit the four cord in. And here is when I lost my fear of falling stacks. I developed a system where I would create a stack as high as I had before. Then, in front of that stack, a second stack about three feet high. Using a step stool, I would step onto the shorter stack and fill the taller stack right up to the rafters. It's taken me three years to perfect the system but it's working pretty well now.
In this shot, you can see that the wood is up to the rafters. You can also see how I've used wood to fill in the space where the stud comes out.
The beautiful sight of stacked wood.
Oh, and by the way, if you have ever tried to balance yourself on a stack of wood three feet high and sixteen inches deep, you quickly realize that it takes a great deal of careful maneuvering to bend down, pick up a piece of wood, stand up and shift that piece of wood above your head so that it can be stacked correctly.
So when you find yourself cozying up to a friend's wood stove after a cold day skiing, be sure to pause a moment to appreciate the amount of work involved in getting that wood from woodlot to stove.
And now I'm off to check the stove to see if it needs more wood.
