Wood Heat, and setting some things straight

Who was the guy who coined the phrase, "Burning wood warms you twice, once when you cut it and once when you burn it." ? I would love to have a stern word with him. Here's the thing, Dear Reader, twice doesn't even come close! Come along with me, and we'll have a little field trip into the steps of getting wood from the tree to the fireplace.

First one must cut down the tree, unless it is a deadfall. Then said person, my hubby in this case, must cut off all the small limbs, separating them from the limbs that are big enough to be firewood. Then the twigs are gathered up for a brush pile, the limbs are stacked in the shed, and the big log of the tree is brought down to the house to be "blocked up". 

This constitutes cutting the big log into lengths that will fit in the stove. In our house that is 18 inches. Now that log may be cut into a piece 18 inch long, but still be three feet wide. That's where the splitting comes in. The boys and hubby used to do this with a splitting maul and wedges, but that is backbreaking work. Eventually the hubby got a pneumatic splitter. There could be a very cheerful advertisement for the pneumatic splitter that guarantees it is so easy that "even a wife can do it". Cue my picture standing there in a pair of overalls and looking determined. They might add that it does help to have a dog for moral support.

So that work has passed from the man of house to me. I carry the logs, or roll the massive chunks, to where the splitter is set up and roaring like a monster from the bad place. I had a friend ask that I take a video showing how to start and run the splitter, (Hello, Raquel!). I did so, and all you could see was me gesticulating to various things while my mouth moved noiselessly. The engine is too deafening to hear over. So I clap on the ear muffs and start in, heaving the logs toward me, placing them on the metal plate, and pulling the lever that lowers the wedge into the wood. When my hubby leaves me to do this, he always sternly warns, "Watch out for you fingers." You bet I do. It helps having this picture directly in front of your eyes at all times-

After you have watched the wedge slam into a giant log and explode pieces of oak, walnut, and cherry into splintered slices like a hot knife through butter, you start looking real fondly at your digits. As I split, I toss the piece to the side in a pile. Hey, at least that means that both sides of my body gets worked evenly. I'd just hate for one bicep to bulge more than the other, heh heh. This is me beginning...

 Here is after several hours of splitting.

And yes, I split this all, so I am going to brag on my efforts and show my pile from every angle.

Here is the awesome part, Dear Reader. I was getting super tuckered, and I was determined that I wasn't going to stop till the pile was gone or I expired. I jokingly send up a little comment to God, saying it would be a great time to run out of gas. A few minutes later the engine changed tone. Then it sputtered and died!!! I just laughed and laughed. It was the perfect time to end, while I could still walk. I keep telling you that He has an amazing sense of humor. 

 How did the early pioneers do it??!! I can't imagine using an axe and a saw to cut all the wood needed to live through the winter with heat and cooking. Think of it. I'm pretty sure that's why they had houses the size of a postage stamp and 27 children. Not only could the kids help with getting wood, but they would be added insulation! I can imagine an old settler looking at his wife, "It's a might drafty along the west wall. We oughtta pop out a couple more younguns to warm up that side." I'm so cold blooded I guarantee I'd have all the kids, plus the dogs, piled on me like a living comforter for the remainder of the winter. But I digress.

Now, it's time to stack all this in the shed. Above is the shed in a normal year. Half of this wood has already seasoned (dried and become good to burn) for a year or two. It is what we would burn that winter. The other half is freshly split and is seasoning for the next year. My hubby has been in remission from cancer for two years. I'm so thankful! But the year he was diagnosed, he was too tired and sick for us to do wood. So we did not put up our extra wood, instead, I burned the seasoned that we had put up the year before. And so this summer the shed has been empty.

A very sobering sight to a person who heats their house with a wood stove all winter. Yes, it has been hard now that all the boys are grown and gone. And so a large amount of the wood preparation has fallen to me. But really, it is reason to be grateful that I am hale and hearty and can do it. Plus, it gives one such an enormous amount of pride to see a massive mound of wood that has grown from your own physical labor. I have to say it induces much more satisfaction than, say, a stack of folded laundry.

But wait, folks, we're not done yet, there's still more! Yessiree, Bob. After that wood is stacked in the shed, then I get to load it in the old red farm truck. I take it to the house and unload and stack it into the woodbox. I love my woodbox! When I was in 5th grade I went to a friend's house and the thing I remember most of the whole visit was the small door in the living room wall, beside the fireplace. I asked what it was, and the mother showed me how it opened to the outside so you could load wood into it. Then, instead of walking the wood through the house and trailing bark as you went, you simply turned and placed it into the fire. Genius!I was raised in a home where the only heat was the fireplace, and so I was perhaps more interested in such things than other kids would have been. I remember studying it carefully and thinking, "I too shall have a woodbox someday!" It is one of the greatest features of my little home, and in the summer months it was a great hideaway/clubhouse for the boys, with the added benefit of being to creep in and out without using the front door.

So, now the woodbox is full. Hooray! Nope, not done yet. Now I get to load the woodstove, and keep the fire going. We don't let the fire go out all winter, so I am responsible for "stoking" it (feeding it) during the day, and "banking" the coals at night. That means filling it full and setting the damper high enough that it won't try to go out and smoke, but low enough that it will burn all night long and leave a good bed of coals to rekindle the fire the next morning. 

But wait, there's still more! Then, when the wood is all burnt up, I get it scrape the ashes through the grate into the pan below. I take out the red-hot pan with welding gloves (we don't let it go out, remember?) and go dump it in a wheel barrow. That is so that it can cool and the coals die before I dump it into the dry creek behind the house. Don't want to start any raging leaf fires, now do we? 

And then I get to load the truck again to restock the woodbox. Repeat this till about April. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE wood heat. I wouldn't trade it for anything. There are a lot of things I would trade to get free wood that's already stacked, but who am I kidding? So how many times exactly did that same piece of wood get me warmed up and my blood pumping? A heck of a lot more times than just two, my friend!

And speaking of ridiculous phrases, what about "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood??" Well, the woodchuck, or groundhog, or whistle pig, whatever you want to call the adorable critter with a big furry place in my heart, doesn't chuck any wood. He can let his body temp drop to 37 degrees, and lower his heart rate to about 5 beats per minute, breathing as little as 2 times a minute, for up to three months. Then, when he senses the weather warming up, he comes out again. Now who's the big dummy?

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Dear Reader, in the space of time in which I was trying to get this ready to post, we had two tornadoes come through our area. We were so, so blessed to only have a portion of a tree land on the corner of the roof. The hubby and I got up there and he sawed while I dragged. There are people one road over who lost cows, others had chicken houses full of 3 day old chicks destroyed. Others had the rooves taken from homes, or lost, literally, hundreds of trees. The highway that goes from our community to the regional airport was covered with trees and power lines, so that you were lucky if you could find a labyrinth of dirt roads to get you past and to the next town. And we were without power for several days.

That is the very lightest of trials compared to what others suffered, but it is still one that causes a person to be very grateful for electricity! The refrigerator freezer had begun to thaw, and we have two upright freezes full of our butchered pig and cow we were worried about. My hubby was able to rig a generator to provide me with sporadic amounts of water from the well, which was wonderful. But Monday night was also Family Dinner night. I had thought to do herb-crusted pork loin, taters and gravy, corn, and homemade bread. For dessert we had been looking forward to the season's first gingerbread and apple dumplings. But while my wonderful stove has a gas range top, the ovens are electric. So I had to rework the meal to feed ten off of the stove top, by lamp light. We had stewed chicken with gravy and mashed taters, plus corn. The bread stumped me until I remembered that pan-fried corn pones were a family favorite. I even tried a new no-bake dessert. It had a bottom layer of graham crackers topped with melted caramel, crushed pretzels, mini marshmallows, and then melted chocolate. It turned out to not be terrible. And we all joked that the mass of candlelight was terribly romantic. My middle son (making the face above) joked that even his brothers could look alluring by candlelight- he he!!

And then the hubby built a lovely bonfire and we ate marshmallows and talked into the night. When we came back inside, my daughter-in-law remarked how cozy it was in the house with the woodstove glowing. So for all my grousing, I am incredibly thankful for wood heat. And electricity. And most of all- my beloved family!