My Intertunnel friends sure are swell.
We’re grateful to everyone that reads, and comments, and corresponds, and to everyone that’s purchased a copy of my book, and purchased my Maine-made cottage furniture, and thrown my minstrel boys some coins, and people that have used the Amazon links on this page. Your friendship and support have meant the world to me and my family.
Our friends at 32 Degrees North sent our boys two beautiful Advent calendars. The little feller especially is a calendar freak, and they both enjoy the old-fashioned thrill of turning over the flaps on the way to Christmas. Thanks for being kind to my boys! Everyone should go over to their Intershop and grab everything before they run out of Christmas. Nice people should buy things from other nice people. And it wouldn’t kill you to read her blog, either: Daughter of the Golden West.
It snowed last night, and when I made a fire this morning it was 10 degrees outside, so we’re thinking of visiting Santa at his place because it might be warmer there.
14 Responses
Low 60's and raining for the 2nd day in a row here – and I'm officially full up on winter. I'm not bragging – I'm actually complaining. Please don't revoke my Borderline status.
So, as a lifelong Southerner, can I ask you what you're doing with that woodpile and all the buckets?
Also, not sure I get how you are keeping the pile, er, piled up.
-XC
And that photo answers the fundamental question of Maine: "Did ya getcha wood in?"
Lots and lots of little pieces of wood. You guys have small stoves or small trees or both?
-XC
Hi Johnny- The sun was shining, so we have no complaints.
Hi Expat- Please remember those are children photographed from two floors up. Each stack is 4 feet high, 24 feet long, and each piece is 16 inches long, and weighs about five pounds each. Each stack is a full cord of wood. There are about 24 million BTUs in one of those piles, the equivalent of about 175 gallons of fuel oil. One of those stacks weighs two tons wet, a ton and a half dry. The wood has to be split or it will never dry enough to burn it.
When wood is split using a star ring on a splitter, the center of big pieces comes through in a perfectly square cross-section. Stacking them in alternating directions on the ends will usually hold up a pile like that.
Old Mainers used to tie a length of clothesline to two pieces of firewood, and bury one in the middle of the pile, and the other on the ends, making a kind of suspension bridge support for the whole shebang. We don't bother.
Hi Gerard- We do now. It won't last.
Ah, so you get basically five or six pieces of wood from a tree section?
We split our wood into four pieces, or three if we're feeling lazy – mostly with a maul, but some guys use a press. Mostly not as the trees are dropped too far off the road to horse equipment back.
Drying wood is not our problem – as long as it doesn't get wet every time it rains it's dry by the end of the summer. Not seasoned, but certainly dry.
The trick down here is to keep the bugs out of it. Two year old wood can e 25% bug. Pretty flames but not so much heat. 🙂
So our wood is pretty hard to stack because it is pretty irregular. I like the clothsline trick, I might try that next time.
-XC
I showed my husband this blog — he's so impressed with your wood pile [mostly envious] and said, "now that's some wood."
I think it's a thing of beauty.
*claps*
Is it possible to have woodpile envy…an architectural tour de force.
Daughetr of the Golden West pains me, because she writes so beautifully about the Southern California I remember from my youth in the 50s and 60s.
Sippican, how long will those cords last you?
What kind of stove heats the house?
Hi Expat- As far as bugs go, I was astonished to learn that I've moved so far north that there are no termites here. Too cold for them. We throw the rotten pieces with ants into the woods. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Hi Harriet- Love to see your smiling face in the comments. Give my best to your husband, but don't tell him the picture only show about 30 percent of our woodpile. Might bum him out. In Maine there are only two kinds of envy: woodpile envy and roof envy.
Thud! My brother fum anotha muvva.
Hi Leelu- I lived there in the eighties and get a fix from DOTGW, too.
Hi Gedaliya- Thanks for reading and commenting. A cord of wood lasts around three or four weeks. Those ten buckets you see in the picture are enough for a day and a half.
People are interested in the heat, I see, so I'll write more about it soon.
Yes, Mr. Sippi, put some HEAT on those pixels you throw at us! (As well as the sugar, the spice, and the twist (or 2 dozen) of lemon.
The place for truly anal-retentive woodpile building is Austria, they are a minor art-form. On our annual walking pilgrimage in the Tyrol we have been amazed at the precision of the woodpiles stacked under eaves. I checked one last year; over 1 sq m of woodpile no piece was more than 2mm out of line, thus presenting a near perfect flat face to the world. I speculate it's part of their grade school curriculum…..