Of Wood and Fire

A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him.  ~ Mae West

Our house has an oil furnace that is connected to an outside oil tank. To fill that oil tank is extremely expensive, so we like to set our thermostat low and supply vital extra heat by burning wood in a wood stove that sits in our kitchen. That stove is the heart of the house. The fire that burns in it is the heart beat of our Winter days and nights.

Last weekend, we missed the monthly wood gathering chore with our friend The Farmer. Stuart was working over the weekend again. Although I went along without him last month, and despite the fact that I usually try to work like a horse, I found it unfair to have our friend and his sons working extra on our behalf (of course, they graciously said it was their pleasure to do so).

Our wood stack in the workshop was slim pickings yesterday, so I decided to call it a wood day and carry in some of the logs from the reserves that we have stacked out back in the woodshed.

I love "doing wood" as they call it around here. You get to know every individual piece of wood intimately from handling it over and over again. There's an old saying that wood fuel heats you up four times: first when you cut it, then when you split it, then again when you stack it and finally, when you burn it.  Talk about efficient heating!

The house was freezing yesterday morning, and I dressed warmly to go out and do wood, but it took only moments for me to feel hot and have to take my coat off once I started working. I love how that happens.




So basically my task was to load the wheel barrel with wood, wheel it from the woodshed to the house and through the mudroom, and then stack it along the wall in the workshop - with the occasional splitting of pieces that are too large to fit in our stove. It's great excercise!

Using wood as heat energy is a way of life. It doesn't cost a lot in terms of dollars, but it does require quite a bit of labour. You either love it or hate it. One local friend nodded in the direction of his lady who was outside doing wood and chuckled "That woman! She doesn't mind getting flowers, but give her a pile of wood and she'll be as happy as can be!"





This beautiful wood pile will last us about a month. 

Stacking firewood is a highly rewarding activity! I'd say it's an art. In fact, when you google "the art of stacking wood", you find all sorts of people describing exactly how they do it and why. I'm still learning but I get better at it every time I do it I seems. When you're done, it kind of looks like a 3-dimensional painting. The interplay of shades and colours, the curves and angles that battle it out with the holes and pieces that stick out. It's all quite pleasing to the eye.

On the practical side, it's important to have a good mix of different woods and sizes and cuts, so that you can pick and chose whatever you need at a given moment without having to move wood around too much - especially when you're standing out there barefoot in your pyjamas at 7 am! 

It's cold outside. When we finally sit in front of that comforting fire and feel the intense heat blasting out from our stove, now that is a sense of satisfaction that is unequaled. We didn't just turn the thermostat on to get some magical machine to do the work for us. We toiled for that heat. The entire process gave us a sense of accomplishment on many levels, it connected us with the nature that surrounds us, it warmed up our bodies and lifted our spirits along the way. Now we can sit back with a glass of wine and our feet up, watch and enjoy.

 

  

  

  

Take a moment to read:


Wendy Milne - Doctoral Thesis on Energy Literacy on woodheat.org