Barn Hop #29

Welcome to the Monday Homestead Barn Hop, friends! Another week has come and gone and fall is now upon us. While the weather may not be cold or even cool yet, most of us can at least say it's cooler! Even those in the southern states were given a bit of a reprieve from the 100+ degree heat!

It may seem like winter is still a long way off, but now is the time to start preparing, especially if you burn wood as a heat source! My family was blessed to find a couple of downed oak trees with the help of a friend (due to a combination of weather and insects) which will be the bulk of our heat this coming winter.

While it may be free in that it didn't cost us money, it does cost us a bit of time, but the investment is well worth it! We borrowed a gas powered log splitter which allowed us to split the large oak pieces in a fraction of the time. And when my husband had to leave for the afternoon, the girls and I could still run it and split wood by ourselves. (However, I was plenty sore and tired from lifting HUGE pieces of heavy oak - most of which were larger than the photo below is showing!)

The splitter produced plenty of scraps that will be excellent for kindling to get fires started...

I like to store the scraps in a metal garbage can, but this time, I'm going to need a lot more than one trash can!

This month's issue of Mother Earth News (Oct./Nov. 2011) has an article on getting the most out of your firewood in case you want to pick up a copy on the newstand. I learned some good tips that I'm going to try out this year.

So far, we've barely made a dent in our wood supply... lots more to split! What a wonderful problem to have!!

What's happening at your homestead this week?

Join The Barn Hop!

Jill @ The Prairie Homestead

Kendra @ New Life on a Homestead

Megan @ A Blossoming Homestead

and Amy @ Homestead Revival...

...invite you to link up and share your homesteading adventures!

1. Write a blog post about what's going on at your homestead or a post on something you're learning or an item of interest that will benefit the homesteading community. Be sure to add the red barn button and link back here so others can join in the fun.

2. Come back here and enter your information in the Linky. Please be sure to link to your actual post (click your title and then copy the URL above) and not your home page so those participating later in the week can find your post easily.

3. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment and tell us what's going on at your homestead!

Please Note: As hostesses of the Homestead Barn Hop, please understand that we reserve the right to remove any links that are not family friendly. While this may be subjective, we will err on the side of caution in order to keep our blogs appropriate for all readers. Thank you for your understanding!