Wood Working

If you thought this post was going to be about fancy cabinet making or show a beautiful workshop you must be sadly disappointed. This post is about the work involved in keeping a house warm in the winter if you burn with woodstoves. (We have two.)

The wood pile that we worked so hard to split and stack must now be taken to the stove to burn. That is a challenge when the woodstove is in the family room, up over the garage, and you DON'T want to haul wood through the house. It makes too much mess. We have a balcony outside the back of the family room and that is where we stack it in preparation to coming in the house. The project is getting it up there.

One person climbs up the woodpile and hands it up to the person stacking on the balcony. Here JoAn is handing it up to Thomas. You want to have a good supply so that you are not looking for wood at 10 O'Clock at night when you want to get a fire ready to go for the night. (Not that that has ever happened in this house.) You want it as close to the door as possible so you don't have to stand in the snow for too long in your bare feet when you want the wood. (Not that we've ever done that either. :-) ) We would never sacrifice the beauty of our balcony by knocking out some spindles in the railing just to make getting the firewood up easier. That would be tacky and make us look lazy. Plus, it wouldn't be safe for the children in the summer.

-this picture is blurry because the camera was distracted by the falling snow.

Once the wood is hauled up and stacked then the pile is covered by a lovely brown tarp again to keep the snow off it for the next round of restacking and hauling. This is not the children's favorite chore, but we all like to be warm so we do it.

We also hope that whoever stacked the woodpile did a good job and that it is stable as we climb all over it. This job definitely gets harder the further we go into winter and the piles get shorter and further from the house. Then the fun begins as one person tries to toss it to the next one without it dropping to the ground or hitting something and breaking it. Winter is so much fun.

~Mom