Our house isn’t super-efficient, but it also stays warm on sunny winter days just from the windows and the black roof, I think. We burn about 3 cords or so a year, with geo-thermal/electric for backup. If we burn diligently, our electric bill is about $100 a month in the winter.

I love cutting wood. Dad has a splitter that’s older than he is (he’s 69!), but it still works well. You just have to remember not to fill the gas tank above the leak in a crease and to kinda watch the throttle, since it jiggle some wire or other loose every so often and you have to tighten it down! Sometimes you just have to hold your mouth right. ;)

We’re great believers in workplace efficiency — the pasture. We drag the trees out with a tractor and chain to where we want to cut them. Drag off the trimmings to a burn pile. Cut right there, using some old electric company cable spools. We lift the trees with Dad’s Farmall 300 (I think?) front-end loader onto the spools, which makes cutting them easier. Dad likes doing this because it gives him something useful to do — he has it in his back and can’t do the lifting and bending so much.

Then we drag the splitter along the cut up trees and limbs, and either stack it right there along the edge of the woods or throw it in the trailer to take to the house.

About half way through, my step-mother comes down with baloney or tuna-fish sandwiches and a nice spread, so we eat and talk (now that the chain saws are quiet again) and then get back to work. Kids, men, women, all hauling limbs & cutting and splitting and stacking. A few weekends of this and we’ve got most of the wood we need. Plus, it’s fun.

I do wonder at the work that people did before engines. Imagine — no tractor, no chain saws, no splitter. Ours are all ancient, but they do work. Sometimes I wonder if it might not be a good idea to stash a couple of two-man saws and some sharpeners, maybe a bucksaw or two, some mauls and such. Economic times being what they are. Maybe I just worry too much!

Love this post. I bought a 40 acre parcel in So Illinois recently that has around 25 acres of woods. I was worried that I bought too much woodland but now see the value of that wood. Thx for the insight.

I have to log out some larger trees (not many) that are badly in need of thinning (or they will fall over – carpenter ants). I am pondering about what to do with the tree-tops. I will cut up the larger parts for firewood but what about the small stuff? I have some pasture that is in need of organic matter. Should I burn the tops and spread the ashes on the fields, or should I rent a chipper and make chips to spread? Or do I leave the treetops in the forest to be naturally composted. Your opinion would be appreciated greatly.

John

Enjoy your essays also. Keep up the good writing!

Greg in MD