Wood You?

Well, here I sit, exhausted at 3 PM. Sigh.

Got out to beside the garage this AM at 730. This is where the previous folk kept their firewood - and a whole lot more. I am a very organized person about my firewood, because I found that it pays in the deep snow to have everything where you know where it is and can grab it. On some snowy days it has been too dark to really see, in my experience, so the less time one scrabbles around in the cold, the better!

So I lit into the stuff next to the garage. I pulled out old metal cans, soda cans, metal strapping, as well as all types of wood. Now, when I cleaned out the firebox in the family-room woodstove in May, I found a lot of things that were not ashes - nails, screws, bits of melted plastic - that had obviously had the wood around them burned for the heat. I am funny about that - I really prefer to burn just wood. So first I had to separate everything out - and I did it by size, as well as by burnable, burnable with screw/nail removal, etc. First stacked up again was the 'squaw wood', the stuff that starts the fire. I lined it up as the closest pile to the back door, right next to the garage. Next came the 'tween wood' the wood that is bigger around and burns a little longer to help ignite the 'big wood', the all-nighters that go on top.

Most of the 'big wood' logs will have to be split; the firebox is kind of small and very tight, even though being cast iron it puts out a lot of heat. (We tried it one bitter, pouring rainy, 40-mph-North-wind-blowing night after we got here; by the time I banked it and went upstairs, the whole house was toasty.) Finally came the notso good wood, the leftover pieces from projects, the nailed wood that will have to be stripped, stacked on a pallet outside the northernmost corner of the garage. Those pieces I hope to only use in emergencies! But nevertheless, better to start now and get them stripped down before we need them.

Of course the "squaw wood' is the biggest pile; it always is. It is easier to go around and gather sticks than it is to find bigger pieces. As I was stacking them, Mike came out and pitched in (he's been working on getting a drain valve for the water line in, so that we can drain the water lines that go out to the hydrants to keep them from freezing and breaking).

With him there, once we got the wood stacked neatly next to the garage, we went around to the back of the garage, between the garage and corral fence. This is a nice storage/catchall for all sorts of things to keep them out of the wind - too nice, too well-used, and too cluttered. So he got the weedeater out of the garage, and we went to work. There was a huge limb back there that I chopped mostly apart, as far around as the big clippers would reach, which gave me another wheelbarrow full of squaw and tween wood. We cleaned out all of the metal and refuse that had stacked up there over time, and even found some good pieces of big wood to add to the stack.

I'm sure that this all seems pretty boring to those who read it, but it is pretty important to us - to get wood stacked, neatly available, for winter, and to get as much garbage and waste out from around the garage as we can. For one thing, it is an invitation to the scurrying things to nest and move in; for another, it is hard to keep it neat and clean when there is so much there that can't be moved, allowing weeds - even some pretty large tumbleweeds! - to grow.

Because the wind is supposed to pick up Sunday and be pretty intense, and then a cold front will move in Monday (maybe rain - maybe not), I also have been watering everything. The dry winds here kind of scorch whatever's growing pretty quickly if they are not watered. As much as I like fire in a safe place in the winter, wildfire scares me to death. So watering things not only keeps them healthy, but cuts down on the fire danger. The fire department already had an all-day working grassfire this week, south of here.

So the Labor Day weekend that everyone else is enjoying I will enjoy, too - my brother from ID called, he is driving his rig through North Platte, 150 miles south of us, on Sunday, and wants to meet us for lunch. We haven't seen each other in four years! I'll enjoy it a lot more knowing that the wood is stacked, the yard is a little cleaner, and we are a little more prepared for winter.

But lord am I tired! Grin