Monday, October 6, 2014

Wood Cutting and Splitting


With predictions of a cold, snowy winter, it's time to
make sure we have adequate firewood for the season.
While we do have a furnace, we supplement by using a 
wood burning insert in our fireplace which is especially 
helpful when we have our occasional power outages
and to help keep electric bills down.


There is a huge downed tree just up the Taylor Trail. 
This will eventually be the entry to the path through the woods 
between our house and my in-laws. I shall 
make a red cloak for Taylor so she can carry a nice
 basket of goodies next door. (Sound familiar??)


Storms take down a lot of 
trees around here, some have been aging 
for awhile, some fell from recent storms. 
Tom takes care of the sawing and my job will
be using the splitter controls after he places
the logs for me.  Then I can help stack.


We're not far from the house, just up the Taylor Trail.


We have a lot of fungus growth on the trees. 
I have heard that if it grows on bark, it's safe to eat but I don't 
think I want to experiment. It does make for 
some interesting patterns and textures. 


The new log splitter comes in very handy.
It saves many hours of time over splitting by hand.
My inlaw's house is next door so it will be used to
clean up the storm damage and provide firewood there too.


About half the tree cut and split.


I began stacking while Tom was finishing up the grass cutting.
Only a portion fits in the wood holder that is on the
 courtyard for easy access. We have a larger location 
up by the garden for the majority of the wood. 
We bring it down as necessary and if it's icy, we place a 
bunch on the front porch to avoid 
slipping and sliding across the way. 


5 comments:

Catawissa Gazetteer said...

"I shall
make a red cloak for Taylor...".

I had no idea that I married Dr. Evil.

Sunnybrook Farm said...

That is nice wood, and the 8N did it's part, had to be a fun day.

Powell River Books said...

We've been working on our wood supply as well. We don't have any land, so we can't cut trees, but there is lots of driftwood available on the shore for us to "harvest." We brought in two loads and have about half of it cut, split and stacked in our floating woodshed. Wayne got me a splitter smaller than yours, but just right for the logs we get. I love it. My ears used to ring for weeks after a long spell of two person hand splitting. - Margy

Liz said...

We just purchased a wood burning stove for our basement to supplement our furnace. We have probably 3 face cords of wood stacked for this winter. How much wood do you think you go through? I guess it depends on how cold it gets.
Next year we invest in a wood splitter!

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

We go through about 4 cords. My husband is in construction so he is home a lot in the winter and feeds the stove all day. It warms the first floor and the heat flows up the steps to help with the 2nd floor. I'll admit that the 2nd floor is cold but for sleeping, I like it that way.