Firewood...

1:52 pm - 80 degrees - sunny...

The firewood cutting for this coming winter is underway.  In past years we have aimed to have all the firewood done by Memorial Weekend, but that has never happened.  So this year we’re giving ourselves a realistic deadline.  We are going to have a minimum of eight cords and hope to have the majority of that cut and split by the end of next month.
 

Besides getting all the firewood cut and split, Tony wants to build a firewood shed so we have somewhere to stack the firewood besides under the house.

While Tony has been busy cutting and splitting firewood, I’ve been busy splitting cedar rounds into kindling.  A warm cozy fire in the fireplace is a great idea, but sometimes that fire is a challenge to start.  That’s where kindling comes in; kindling is an excellent way to start a fire on the first try.  Even though kindling is essential to heating one’s home with wood, it’s often overlooked.

We store our kindling in 5-gallon buckets and crates for a couple of reasons: kindling is inconvenient to stack; stored vertically, any dampness tends to wick away faster; and its an easy chore for our kids to fill a 5-gallon bucket full of kindling from the kindling crates and then bring it into the house.