Firewood seems to be one of those chores that seems to never end. In January, I handle firewood all day long loading the fireplace to keep the house warm. I burn firewood well into spring, but by February, I have to run back to the farm to load up some more to take back supplement the dwindling supply at home. In March, I start burning pine for maple sugaring while still bring the hardwood at home. In April & May, I prune fruit trees and begin cutting wood for the variety of needs throughout the year: camp fires, pizza fires, heating the cabin, warming the house and a good supply for the sap evaporator. I tend to cut my pine supply in May. I might not cut hardwood in June or July because it is too hot to run a chainsaw, but I still end up cutting Christmas tree stumps and brush which end up in several big bonfires. September, means that I really have to get started on cutting & splitting, but with other farm chores, I don’t make much headway until October. Between afternoons splitting wood, I load up the truck to bring wood home. I move storage crates of wood all around the farm to dry. By November, the days get too short to get a lot done outside, but I now rush to finish cutting firewood, one of those last chores to get down before we start selling Christmas trees and the farm gets closed up for the season (for me that’s about six weeks). Also, by this time, I’m burning wood daily while moving it from wood pile to the house.
This year my wood supply comes almost exclusively from three trees. A huge red oak cut down along the road by the power company was too large for me to cut with my own saw or even move over the stone wall. Chris to the rescue with his 24″ bar and his newly built crane trailer. We winch the rounds from the forest into the trailer. Many of them easily weigh over 200 pounds. This tree has been on the ground for a few years, but I had already cut up the smaller parts to use last year. This year, we’ve filled the trailer and my truck twice each. The other two trees were some very large ashes that had succumbed to the rampant emerald ash borer within the last two or three years. Again, trees too big for me to take down without a little extra help from Chris. Between the three trees, I have almost 5 cords of wood. I still need to cut another 3-4 for sugaring but I’m out of time and will have to get to it when I can in the late winter.
