stovewood

After morning barn chores each day, it's time to fetch in more wood for the stove.

Got to the bottom of the first pallet this week.

Started on the second pallet:

Every morning I load up the smaller cargo sled.

It's enough stovewood for one day.

The next step is pulling the sled around to the portico and unloading it stick by stick into a log tote. It usually takes five or six trips with the tote to empty the sled. Since I can't walk through my house wearing cleats, the boots and gaiters have to come off before I can carry a tote through the kitchen to the parlor.

And there's another warm day and night for Moxie and Della and me

 and the water lines (so far, fingers crossed).

How are your mornings going?

~~~~~

thankful thursday

this evening

I am so thankful that the forester I once had the great good fortune to work with, still, many years later, keeps me on his list for an annual stovewood delivery.

He's doing me a favor - my little Waterford stove only takes 

short wood, and when he loads up his big truck with shorts and offcuts, it means a lot of extra handling. So when I get a call saying "the truck is loaded, is this a good time?" yes, it is. And watching as that wood rolls like thunder off the back of the truck feels like my birthday, every time.

The hard part is paying for the wood. I can't judge the cordage at all, because of the size of the pieces. He can probably judge the cordage quite accurately, but never does. So every year, I say, "Now what do I owe you?" And he says, "Oh, I don't know," and then names a price. And then I say, "That's not enough," and give him some cash. And then he says, "That's too much," and gives some back.

And then I start stacking the wood under cover. And all winter long, the woodbox by the stove is filled and emptied, filled and emptied.

And I am warmed not just by the fire, but by gratitude.

~~~~~

up in smoke

Several small projects were part of the Construction Extravaganza right from the start, and others developed as part of the process. Here is one of the first category: the chimney.

This chimney was added to the house in 1939, if I remember correctly. (The date was recorded in concrete at the base of the chimney in the cellar. It's 8F right now. I'm not going into the cellar to check.)

13 Oct 2017: southeast corner

When I bought the house, the chimney was venting both a propane space heater in the parlor and a massive old propane kitchen range of which I think two burners were functional. I might have tried to have that range repaired, but the amount of space it occupied it this tiny house was hard to justify. Instead I decided to remove it and do without a stove until I could design a little kitchen and put in a wall oven. Looking back, if I had known that I'd be cooking in a toaster oven for a couple of decades before I could make the kitchen happen, I might have made a different decision! But it all worked out.

18 Oct: northwest corner.
Flashing and loose bricks removed.

When I was working in one of my first forest-related jobs, I bought my little woodstove: a Waterford, from Ireland. Friends from work helped move it into my parlor, and that was a learning experience for me: I learned that there are some tasks one should not allow friends to tackle, period. It was a good lesson.

19 Oct: chimney tile extended; spark arrestor standing by.

I almost changed my mind before buying the Waterford, because I was told I would have to put a liner in the chimney. But when I clambered up on the roof, I found that the chimney was lined with tile but for some reason the top tile was lower than the crown. So I put "add one tile to chimney" on my List. That was in the early 90s.

You've got to love a carpenter who has built chimneys.

Apart from cleaning the chimney every year that I burned wood, I did no other maintenance. The last few times I was perched on the roof performing acrobatic stunts with the comically wobbly chimney brush, I noticed mortar beginning to crack between a couple of bricks on the top row. So of course I added "clean and remortar loose bricks" to my List.

19 Oct: most of the work done

And last year I bought a nearly-new spark arrestor cap for $20 at a tag sale held by the local Animal Control facility. A very useful improvement, but it wasn't even ON my List, darn it!

26 Oct: work stopped by days of torrential rain.

When I knew I would have to reroof the house, the chimney tasks - tile, mortar, cap - were naturally included in that project. The repair and improvement was done before the metal roofing went on, and then the carpenter constructed a custom flashing for it, using the roofing material.

27 Oct: a wonder that rain left any leaves on the trees!

The chimney had a long rest in November, waiting for me to dismantle and clean the stovepipe in the parlor - always a dirty, back-aching, mess-making chore. This year I also had two helpers who would have been happy to track soot all through the house on their eight little feet. And I did it on my birthday - don't tell me I don't know how to have a good time! Or age gracefully!

Early the next morning I lit the fire.

Here is the first smoke rising through the "new" chimney:  

There hasn't been snow on that chimney since.

And there probably won't be til Spring.

Since I didn't burn wood last Winter (in the interest of keeping those eight little feet safe), I have a wonderful stockpile of seasoned stovewood this year. Some from my own property, a bit left over from the 2015 delivery, and this gorgeous truckload delivered last December by my Best Forester Friend:

Flashback: 2 December 2016

 I wish you could hear the sound of the wood tumbling!

It's like the happiest thunder in the world.

I always try to stay a full year ahead with stovewood, but don't always manage it. As this Winter approached, I felt quite comfortable if not actually smug. I'm expecting to burn a LOT of wood this year.

And I have a lot of wood to burn.

I'm rich! Rich, I tell you!

As cold as it's been already this year - minus 4F this morning and up to a rollicking 8F at noon - the stove has been kept well fed. I wonder how much of my massive stockpile will be left when Spring rolls around?

~~~~~