Dare I blog twice in one week?
Sure! Why not??
I’ve been wanting to put in a non-chickenesque post for a while. There’s a lot that goes on out here in the Joelton Woods that makes the chickens and dogs possible. While it may not be as exciting or glamorous as new puppies and new chickens and lots of eggs, it is definitely a big part of what keeps our little homestead chugging.
Wood.
This is our third winter since adding a wood stove to the house. We have an open floor plan log house with a nice tall ceiling. We really love this…. except in the winter. It is terribly hard to keep the house warm, and the electric bill each winter was KILLING us. So, living in the middle of a hardwood forest, we decided to use some of the local, renewable resources at hand to try and keep NES at bay during the winter.
The first 2 winters, we really played catch-up in terms of wood. Season 1 because we hadn’t made the decision to add the stove until well after the “stocking up” season for wood. Jerry really worked hard to keep us in wood, but many times the fire just served as a screen saver since all the energy went to drying the wood and not making heat. But, it did help, and we looked forward to having the next spring/summer to stock up and make season 2 even better.
What was that about best-laid plans?
As some of you may know, Jerry ended up in a close encounter with a chainsaw that summer. This somewhat cut short our wood stocking progress as he was out of commission while the leg healed. Thankfully, he missed any serious structural damage so it was lots of stitches and time to heal.
As a result, season 2 with the wood stove (our coldest winter in a LONG time!!) saw a lot of screen saver time as we burned through the dry wood quickly with the extra cold. Plus, the cold just kept going. Jerry and the boys spent A LOT of time out in their insulated coveralls prepping wood in the VERY cold.
Let me pause just a moment to say just how GRATEFUL I am to have a husband who is such a hard worker and who can get out there and do these things! And, he is teaching the boys to be little woodsmen, too. I pray that they will be able to use this skill to help their families in the future!
Now we are at season 3, and just about to close out January. It hasn’t been nearly as cold this year, but the cold started EARLY. We had February cold in November. It was crazy. Before November hit, Jerry and the boys had built us one holzhousen built along with many stacks of wood lattice-stacked to dry. We had thought we were in good shape, but it really takes a LOT of wood. At least this time, we’re burning dry stuff, so it makes great heat.
This is definitely a learning process. We’ve still been having to go get wood during the cold months, but Jerry has learned what to look for in the downed trees to find the wood that has had a head start drying in the woods. We know now that we’ll have to get even more ready during the warm months in order to be set for winter. What has been really nice is that most of the wood we have burned for the last 3 years has come from trees that were already down on our property. There were some pretty serious storms that came through back when we were building our house that took down many trees out in the woods at the root ball. We’re just helping with forest management by cleaning it all up 🙂
Thankful for all the hard work by the men of Crack of Dawn Farms!! (I do get out there and help when I can, don’t worry :-))
Here are some pics of the guys in action. If you ever want to stop by and split, stack, haul wood, you are more than welcome!
