Rural Revolution: Putting up firewood

With autumn flying by, we wanted to get the firewood put up sooner rather than later. Among much else, we wanted to clear the driveway in preparation for an upcoming yard sale we plan to hold in the next couple of weeks (it’s weather dependent).

We bought three cords of log rounds from a friend with a side business of selling firewood. We didn’t need the wood split since we have our own log splitter. The first delivery was made in late May, so the rounds sat in the driveway all summer, and the second delivery was in early September.

The funny thing is, we still have a fair bit of wood left over from last winter. Sometimes we forget we’re living in a much smaller place than our last house, plus it’s more efficiently insulated, so we don’t go through nearly as much wood each winter. (And also, last winter was fairly mild.)

Still, extra firewood is no bad thing. With the full delivery now sitting in rounds in the driveway, it was time to get splitting.

After each bout of splitting, we stacked it up in the woodshed.

We spent about a week splitting and stacking, working for just a couple of hours each day.

Gradually the wood shed filled up.

We crammed as much wood in as we could, up to the very top, filling random holes with wood pieces of appropriate size to slot in.

This lady startled me. I’m not sure how she managed not to get smushed, since I found her right on a log round I was splitting.

The time came when we had the wood shed crammed full to the very brim: Top to bottom, side to side, back to front.

However we still had a lot of wood left to go. Where to put it?

After some discussion, we laid down pallets and started stacking wood on the side of the house.

And don’t worry, we didn’t stack it directly against the house.

This will be easy to tarp.

We also stacked some wood on the back porch to use first.

In short, we have firewood coming out our ears, possibly as much as three years’ worth. A blessing indeed as we prepare for winter.