Woodshed Part 2

I finished my woodshed quite a while ago, but I forgot to post an update. The roof and walls were made of old construction materials to save time. The only thing that is left now is to put birch bark and soil on the roof. As of yet, I’m using plastic tarps.

The walls slant to compensate for that the posts are not completely straight. It gives me a little more space, but the lower edges will be prone to rotting. But this building is not build to last forever, so I’m fine with that.

Traditional in this area is to cut up all the firewood for the year in one go and stack ready made firewood in the shed. What I observed in Mongolia was that they instead stored whole, dry logs and sawed and split wood every day or every few days. I’ve come to prefer this method as I am using a handsaw and don’t want to spend three weeks in spring cutting and splitting wood. In winter there isn’t too much to do anyway as we procure all the meat we need in autumn. This makes me enjoy cutting firewood rather than thinking about it as a chore.

The disadvantage is of course that these whole logs dry very slowly compared to sawn and split ones. So I ringmark living trees that are not suitable for timber and wait for them to die and dry out standing. This can take several years, so I have a lot standing around in various stages and ringmark new trees every time one is cut down. In the meantime the dead trees will provide excellent habitat for woodpeckers and other animals that feed on bark beetles.

The dry logs are also lighter when I bring them to the shed.