As we close in on the dead of winter, I can't help but wonder how difficult winter was for our ancestors. If we're cold, we turn up the heat. Let's face it...very few people will just add on another layer of clothes. We like our creature comforts! But put yourself back 100-150 years. Your only source of heat was most likely a fire. Whether it was in the form of a fireplace or a cast iron stove, you needed wood to keep warm.
We supplement the heating system in our house with a woodstove. For someone like me,the heat from the stove is wonderful. It's a steady warmth, as opposed to a furnace or boiler, which has to cycle up to temperature. But this warmth comes with a price.
The price may be to someone else who cuts the trees into usable sizes. Or, the price may be to ourselves in the form of time and effort to gather wood. Perhaps "gather" isn't the right word to use......I don't believe I've ever just walked into the woods and "gathered" firewood.
This past weekend, we needed to get more dry wood to burn. The wood that we bought earlier in the season is still too wet to use by itself. It might be great for an outdoor fire, as it steams and smokes. It would be grand for driving mosquitoes away! Yet, since I wish to have a fire in my woodstove, it's not the best choice.
Armed with our chainsaw and log puller, Rick, Tiffany and I set off in search of some standing dead timber. We were fortunate to find a tree with three sections. Two of these sections were dead. The third part still had brown dried leaves attached. For the most part, that only means one type of tree in our corner of the world. It was an oak! For those of you who don't burn wood, it's a favorite to have. As a hardwood, it burns slow and hot. Just the ticket for a favorable fire.
Rick fired up the chainsaw and make short work of taking the tree down. We cut it into logs and pulled them out of the woods. Then they were loaded onto the back of the pick-up and hauled home. The next step was to cut them into handle-able pieces to be split. Once we split them (with the aid of a log splitter) they were loaded back into the truck and taken to the house. There they were stacked and ready for our fire.
There is an old saying that goes "Wood warms you four times over. First when you cut it, then when you split it. Then when you stack it and last when you burn it." I have found this to be true each and every time.
We only use wood as a supplement to our heat. I can't imagine how it was for my grandparents. There were no chainsaws. There were no log splitters. There was no other option for heat. The amount of wood they must have needed and the time required to gather it must have been phenomenal! Remember, the wood was not only their heat source, but also the fuel source for their cooking and baking!
As we ready ourselves for yet another winter storm (forcasters saying this is the "big one" for this season), I know that we'll be roasty-toasty warm.....for the fourth time!
