So simple I never thought of it

Woodstove season is in full effect this time of year. It has snowed 2-4 inches several times this year only for it to warm up to a rain and melt it all away. We even have had a morning with the wake up temp at 0 degrees. I purchased new snow boots for myself and my son. My feet grew since being pregnant and the older my son gets the more winter playing and activities we will be doing so I need to make sure I have good warm gear. I packed away all the fall and rain gear for our snow pants and mittens. The maul and ax have been sharpened and a new wheel was put on the wheelbarrow this past summer.

Our wood shed has two stalls and is very tall. This year we hung plastic sheeting around three sides of it to stop blowing snow. I'm not sure why we did not think of doing sooner. I guess we liked dealing with snowy wood. I have been keeping track of the sun movement patterns and the wind patters on our property. We live in this little wind tunnel, wind blows right up our drive way and hits the wood shed, causing snow drifts. I told my husband that a second wood shed of the same size needs to be built right next to it. This would give us 4 stalls and we  would really be able to get our wood on a burning rotation. One stall provides enough wood for a winter burning season with some extra for maple syrup boiling in the early spring. I have it worked out that stall one would be "burn this year" wood, stall two would be "second year cured" wood, stall three would be "first year cured" wood and stall four would be empty/ this winters harvest wood. I prefer to harvest wood in the sinter when I am not sweating to death and there are no bugs. Then the following year we would just rotate over. This way it would practically eliminate our need to buy dry cured wood. It's about $200/season to heat our place. That is still a bargain compared to natural gas prices we were paying in the city. In Minneapolis we were paying about $200+ a month and in Connecticut we were paying $400/ month. These were small rambler style houses.

This is some of the wood we got from friends who had a tree come down during a spring storm. We do not have room for it in the wood shed so its drying out in the yard.

My husband surprised me and built me a wood stand for inside the house. In the past we were just stacking wood in a rubber made bin. Again, I don't know why we did not think of this before. This new thing holds TWO wheel barrows worth of wood and lasts us almost an entire week before we have to cut more. There is also more air circulation around the wood, so if any of it gets damp from splitting it out in the snow it drys a lot faster.Yesterday was my turn to split wood, I did the two wheelbarrows full. It was a lot of work. I brought in one load and saved the second load for my husband to bring in. He also rigged up a ramp onto the deck to wheel the wheelbarrow up so you don't have to make a million trips up and down the stairs. Pushing a packed wheel barrow up the ramp is hard work too.

This is an example of a knotted up log that is impossible for me to split. I lift up the 8 pound maul over my head bring it down in a squatting motion and it just sort of bounces off. By splitting wood in a squatting motion instead of an over the shoulder motion I am giving myself more of a full body work out.  I end up stringing together epic combinations of swear words that echo through our woods. I'm sure the neighbors think I am casting some sort of evil spell. I will attempt to split these kinds of knotted up logs about five times, if I can't do it then it goes in my husband's pile to split. Last year we had a big'un that was so knotted up that he couldn't even split it so it turned into fire pit wood.

Leather Face the Pug likes his bed on the floor  right next tot he wood stove. Sometimes he gets too hot and has to exit the bed and stretch out across the rug to cool off.

My son and I got our machete and sword out to clear brush from along the drive way and mail box. He wanted to pretend we were "viking pirates". It was a pretty fun afternoon.