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!!
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