WOODSTOVES AND LABOR

When we bought our little house on the river in the cold reaches of northern New York we thought the woodstove sitting in the corner of the living room was a real value added feature. The previous owner talked about how the stove would warm the whole house and the propane furnace would remain mostly idle, saving hundreds of dollars in expensive fuel. He talked about easily cutting up the fallen trees from the more than two acres of woodlot and whiling away pleasant hours splitting and stacking the cut up pieces into a formidable wood pile. It sounded so romantic and appealing. But it isn’t.

During the few weeks that we stayed in the house during our first winter of ownership it seemed like the guy was right. Since we hadn’t enough time to do the cutting and splitting from our home grown supply we bought a few cords from a local guy and all we had to do was stack it up. Then every couple days we would pull some of the wood off our pile and haul it to the rack next to the stove. And that propane furnace didn’t run at all. The house was warm and cozy, as advertised.

Then last spring, before the dishwasher flood of July, my brother and I cut up some wood in the lot and hauled it over to the back yard near the shed. In a previous article I related the adventures of inexperienced and un-skilled Paul Bunyan’s and the challenges they met doing such a simple and easy task. We ended up getting about one cord put up in the pile. In the fall we worked again cutting up and splitting wood. Grueling hours of arduous labor resulted in another cord or so. Unfortunately this cord needed to “season” as they say. So I called the local supplier and had a couple cords of seasoned wood delivered. Then we had to re-stack the woodpile so that the seasoned wood would be available for first use when the weather got cold. That was a mighty and laborious chore, but it got finished. It was a decent woodpile and we looked forward to getting up to the little house when the snow was flying.

After Thanksgiving my wife and I spent a few days in the house. We had wood fires going every night and since the weather wasn’t too cold we didn’t use too much wood keeping the place warm. Our second trip up was just after Christmas. The weather was very cold and windy with a fair amount of snow. We used most of the contents of our inside wood rack every two days. Since I was recovering from a shoulder injury my dear wife helped haul wood into the house, so the labor didn’t seem too bad. But the house, again, was warm and toasty and the propane stayed in the tank.

When we arrived for our week’s stay beginning on Valentine’s Day I assessed the state of the woodpile and was somewhat dismayed. We were already moving into the wood that was cut and stacked by my brother and me. It was pretty well seasoned but it was also not covered by a tarp. It was, however, covered by a thick layer of crusty snow. So my wife and I went to work in the brisk coldness of a North Country February removing the snow and stacking the woodpile where it could be covered by the tarp alongside the shed.
We hauled in a bunch of wood to replace what we had used on our first couple of days of vacation. The weather was wicked cold and windy. Wood needed to be burned at a pretty good rate to keep the house warm. On the fourth day we hauled in a bunch more wood to fill the rack. My shoulder started bothering me again. My wife accused me of using it as an excuse, calling me a slacker of the worst kind. On the sixth day we again hauled in wood, this time bringing in enough to last for the remainder of our stay. The woodpile was sadly depleted now and the pieces remaining were those that were not properly sized or that had other types of deformities or aberrations. On the day before our departure we restacked the pile and trimmed up some pieces which we used to fill the rack one last time. At least if we go up one more time before the winter ends, sometime in late April, we’ll have enough wood for one or two nights. A problem might arise if my brother and his wife use the place as they’ve planned to do sometime in March. But I’ve got a solution to that problem. The day they arrive I’ll call my local firewood guy and have him deliver three or four cords. Then I’ll shame my brother and his wife into stacking it all neatly, citing their comparative youth and strength and my age and obvious infirmity. Maybe I’ll make it five or six cords. Then in the summer I can get some of my cousins to help cut up some of the fallen trees and split them into another four or five cords. This wood burning is turning out to involve a lot of difficult work and diplomacy.

But it will be worth it next winter. If the price of propane would drop things would be even better.

Have a fine day.