Raccoon Ridge Ramblings: Firewood Warms My Heart

I have already told you how I love to freeze things, like the jars of cilantro, and that I enjoyed canning the beets because I felt like the squirrel putting the nuts away for winter. I feel the same way about firewood. There is something comforting about knowing that it's there, Just In Case. The funny thing is that I am slow to use up any of the stuff - I haven't touched a jar of beets yet, I haven't wrestled out a new jar of cilantro from the freezer. I want to save it all for "later". The trouble is that later doesn't ever come (this is a topic to explore at a later date). So I have a lot of food sitting in my freezer, waiting for that rainy day, or that day when I don't have any other food to use up. I had to throw out a lot of food from the freezer earlier this year. I did the math. It was older than my daughter, and she was born in 2004.

Firewood is different. I will put off lighting a fire until it is unbearably cold, and the guilt is overwhelming regarding making a small child live in a house without heat. But I WILL use it. In fact, I look forward to the day that I light my fire. This year I am aiming for the end of October. I anticipate lighting it then, and not having to light another fire until Spring. You see, I never let my fire go out. Unless, of course, we go away for a couple of days. Otherwise, we have a perpetual fire at our house. We wake up to a warm house, we come home to a warm house; we like to pretend we are in a cozy cabin, hunkered down for the winter.

I have worked a lot this summer with my chainsaw (faithful reader that you are, you know all about my chainsaw trials), sawing up what I call my brother's trash and my treasure. It's especially funny because his nickname is Man, so Man's Trash is My Treasure. Not just One Man's Trash, not Any Man's Trash, but Man's Trash. It's his trash because he doesn't like to deal with logs or downed trees that are under a certain diameter. He only cuts up trees that are 2 feet in diameter or more. Anything smaller is just not worth his time. It's my treasure because it is small enough for me to manage. I have a small chain saw, and it the perfect size for cutting up My Treasure. I have been scampering through the woods, happily cutting up small trees and my mom has been scampering faithfully behind me, making woodpiles with them or tossing them into the back of the truck.

Some of our woodpiles are pretty cute because they have "antlers". This happens when I saw up a tree and I miss cutting a branch off on the underside, so when Mom picks up the logs, some of them have branches still attached. She stacks them with the branches pointing upward, and ¡VOILA! We have antlers.

Truck loads of wood are driven back to the house and split, with the log splitter, of course. A load is then hauled to my house and the wood is stacked in my woodshed. I am especially happy now because last weekend we finished filling my woodshed. Anything extra is now going to my holz hausen, a really cute kind of woodpile.

The holz hausen is thrilling to me because I am trying to get a year ahead in my firewood storage. Plus it is German, and attractive. What more could a person want in a woodpile? If I am a year ahead, all the firewood I burn will be properly dried and will burn to its potential, giving off nice, toasty, penetrating heat. It will not clog up my chimney with creosote and threaten to catch my stovepipe on fire. That's a bonus.

Every couple of days I mosey out to my woodshed. First I admire its design. I designed it after looking at different woodsheds on the Internet, and I quite like the looks of it. It allows air to circulate and dry the wood, yet protects the contents from the elements. Then I gaze in wonder at the construction. Man helped me get it started, and I finished the sides and roofed it myself. Then I proudly note the firewood that is inside. I stroll up to my holz hausen and openly stare at it, and it makes me smile. I know just how the squirrel feels. I am the squirrel.