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 "Pic-Of-The-Week" Homemade doughnuts by AL |
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"Pic-Of-The-Week" Homemade doughnuts by AL |
Sufficient Self ForumLiving a more Self Sufficient & Sustainable Lifestyle |
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A life with firewood:
Anyone who has or is using wood to heat there house knows the time it takes to get firewood ready for the next season. Most will have it cut and delivered or will split there own with a wood splitter. How many can say they cut all there firewood by hand.??? I have never cut a full season by hand but this winter I have started too. I know a lot of people can't but I am commenting on my own effort.
Over the yrs of buying the tools to do the job I have a nice collection of wood chopping tools. Axes, Mauls, wedges, hand saws and so on. Yes I could use a chainsaw and I have a few of them but the goal of the test was by hand only. I have to say it's some hard work but gratifying. So far I have cut about a cord and a half over the past month. Yes I'm not going at it to hard but it's a work filler and some exercise. I personally want to do this so if the day comes that power is not an option I will be able to with no concerns of trouble.
Finding the wood. I am a pretty frugal person. Just ask my wife. ( her eyes roll and a big YUP!!) As I travel around the island and even off island I am always on the look out for downed trees and stacks of tree cuts on the sides of the road. I go up to the house and ask if I can have the wood. 90% will say " Go ahead" Somme will come out and help me load. A lot of my clients I work for will give me all there trees too. I like getting paid to get rid of my free heat for them. 
Yes I have offered to take it for free but they always want to pay me for the work. O.K. in my book. Another great source I find for heat or starting my fires is ceder shingles. I do a couple jobs a yr and get enough to start all my fires each season.
I use to spend 3000 a yr to heat my house. Now I am down to 1000.00 and that becasues of our water. ( will be working on this problem the coming yr) I have not been able to collect enough free wood to heat the house for a season. So, I'm still buying some tree lenghts about 400.00 worth 4 cords. Even with this purchase I am saving over 1600 a yr in heating oil. That's 1600 that is not going to the big oil companies. It's going back into my pocket. We plan on still budgeting 3000.00 on oil but will use the money we don't spend on oil to buy a new boilermate or pay off our last debt ( THE HOUSE).
Thank you for reading and god bless. 
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Wish you lived a bit closer. I have only bought wood 2 or 3 times in about 24 years. Right now, because of all the rain we had this year, I'm low on wood. I wasn't able to get it. I only have enough cut and split to last until Tuesday or maybe Wednesday. If you lived here, I have you get some of the wood for me, cut and split it for me, and then let you take a bunch more for yourself as payment. 
(That is, providing that's fine w/you.)
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Denim Deb wrote:
Wish you lived a bit closer. I have only bought wood 2 or 3 times in about 24 years. Right now, because of all the rain we had this year, I'm low on wood. I wasn't able to get it. I only have enough cut and split to last until Tuesday or maybe Wednesday. If you lived here, I have you get some of the wood for me, cut and split it for me, and then let you take a bunch more for yourself as payment.
If I lived close by I would gladly come over and help you out. I'd probably ask for a pie though. I'm always a sucker for homemade cooking.
It's been one of those winters with oil being so high. I have more and more people having me cut would for them. Now mind you these people are not poor or middle class but they still see what is going on. They certainly don't mind paying me for a piece of mind. Helps me and it helps them so we all make out I guess. As for my locals I always barter for this type of help.
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If you came over and gave me a hand, one pie would not be enough! I'd probably make dinner. After all, if I made a loaf of chocolate chip banana bread for the guy that cut up just a little bit of wood for me, I'd have to do more.
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Some of my fondest memories of my dad come from times I would go out with him cutting wood. As he would cut it, I'd load the section into the truck, delighting in the sap-sticky hands and the smell of fresh cut pinon, oak and spruce.
Then once we had what he thought was enough, we'd get busy with the splitter and axes.
Now that i'm grown I still enjoy the accomplishment of chopping down a tree, though I only use a hatchet for the most part. someday I may graduate to a chainsaw but for now I'm content chopping away at storm-downed trees and and the not-so-daunting young trees. 
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There is something special about the heat of a woodfire. We have a woodburning stove and it's a peaceful and relaxing way to spend an hour just watching the flames and enjoying the heat.
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okra wrote:
There is something special about the heat of a woodfire. We have a woodburning stove and it's a peaceful and relaxing way to spend an hour just watching the flames and enjoying the heat.
I do that a lot. My wife came out one night after I turned out all the lights and layed on the couch. She asked if I was ever going to sleep in our bed anymore? I answered " I likey the fire. It's cool to watch and I'm so warm"
Last edited by THEFAN (02/05/2012 10:36 am)
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My first year on my own in the country, having left my family home, I gathered and cut my firewood by hand. I cut dead-fall trees, standing dead (snags), and left-behind tree sections in or near logging sites. I had several bow saws and crosscuts. Sometimes, that year, another guy and myself would use a two-man saw and share the resulting cut wood. And sometimes I'd work by myself and bring the wood home. Yeah, it was slow and quite a bit of work.
By the following year, I'd bought a chainsaw. But I've kept the hand saws that I had that first year - just in case. 
Of course, whether you use a hand saw of some sort or a chainsaw to cut the rounds, an axe, a maul, and splitting wedges are still useful for the next phase. I can understand that you have a collection of those, THEFAN.
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I've thought of getting a hand saw, but not sure that I'd be up to using one. I've had 2 rotator cuff surgeries on my left shoulder, and had an ulnar nerve transposition in my right elbow.
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There is something so satisfying about that kind of work.
I can't wait until we can do more of it!!
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