Firewood
Never be stingy with firewood.
First Published: 2025-02-05| Last Updated: 2024-06-09
Status: stub| Audience: wood fire enjoyers| Confidence: aficionado
How miraculous and wondrous,
Hauling water and carrying firewood!
Every freeman may agest his own wood within our forest at his pleasure, and shall take his pawnage. Also we do grant, that every freeman may drive his swine freely without impediment through our demesne woods, for to agest them in their own woods, or else where they will. And if the swine of any freeman lie one night within our forest, there shall be no occasion taken thereof, whereby he may lose anything of his own.
You have chainsaws and axes and mauls and you live in the middle of a forest littered with deadfall. There are few luxuries quite as nice as bare feet in February. So never be stingy with your firewood.
Firewood as Lifestyle
Heating with wood is less of a bald necessity and more of a lifestyle choice in 21st century Europe. I will freely admit that, while also maintaining that not only is it a viable and reasonable choice, it is the fit and proper choice for all those who can do so. See Firewood Lifestyle for the full argument.
Collecting
The general contours of my firewood gathering are simple. Trees fall in the forest and sometimes across the roadOften enough that if it has been raining heavily, I keep a chainsaw in the back of the car, because you never know when you won’t be able to get home due to a tree laying across the road. . These are what I burn. I prefer to be part of the deadwood removal cycle regardless of the minor difference in BTU output in the final firewoodHarmon, M. E., Woodall, C. W., Fasth, B., Sexton, J., & Yatkov, M. (2011). Differences between standing and downed dead tree wood density reduction factors: A comparison across decay classes and tree species. Res. Pap. NRS-15. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 40 P., 15, 1–40. . I cut them into sections, perhaps 3 or 4 meters long and drag them to a pile next to my firewood shed. There they lay until late April or early May, when the firewood shed is (mostly) empty and I am relatively sure I am done burning wood for the year.
Along with fallen sticks and branches we collect throughout the year to use as kindling, we almost never fell a living tree for firewood. We do trim our orchard trees, and those prunings definitely make it into our firewood, but that is more a case of using the “waste” from one process as the input to another process; a permaculture principle.
Processing
The first step in processing is dividing the wood up by species. Pine and other softwoods go in one pile to become outdoor fire pit firewood and/or shavings for animal bedding. Hardwoods go into another pile to become indoor firewood. Apple is put in a third pile for use in the smokehouse.
Storing
Firewood is stored in a woodshed made from a converted livestock shelter or loafing shed.