Matters of firewood

Early this summer, we participated in a county underbrush cleanup program that cleared out a lot of debris from a wooded portion of our property.

At that time, we also asked the workmen to drop two large dead trees (one pine, one fir), a service we paid for separately.

This past week, Don got started cutting the trucks into rounds. It’s fall, you see, and firewood is on our minds.

We stacked the rounds, temporarily, near the barn.

We haven’t split them yet, because the log splitter had a horrifically flat tire and we couldn’t move it around to the back. Don removed the tire and ordered a spare.

The wood is still a bit too green as well. Our plan is to split, stack, and tarp it in a different location from our primary woodpile, and let it cure for a longer period.

Another reason for separating this year’s wood is we’re going to use up the existing woodpile as much as possible this winter.

Whatever is left over at the end of the season is going to be moved to another location, a permanent woodshed. We don’t want to build a permanent woodshed in this exact spot, but instead about twenty feet away (we have a better use for this spot which will be detailed in a future blog post), so the more wood we can use up, the less we’ll have to move later. That’s why we don’t want to stack this year’s wood in this spot.

However we did need to replace the tarp over the woodshed, as it had ripped over the last year. So we pulled off the tattered remains of the old tarp, exposing the temporary structure we made with horse panels.

We laid some cattle panels over the top of the horse panels to add extra support under the tarp (for snow and rain loads).

Then we spread out the new tarp…

…and carefully pulled it over the top of the structure.

We tied the tarp snugly in place. The wood is now protected for the winter.

It was also time to bring a load to the house, so I filled the gorilla cart a couple of times…

…and stacked it on the back porch.

Little by little, we’re getting ready for winter.