Why I Oughta...

September is firewood-figurin' season around here.  It is the time when I typically place our seasonal order for firewood for the Winter.  I went out to look at how things were shaping up (currently) and then I figured I'd wander through the archives to see what history tells me.  Lets start where we were a year ago and where we are today. A little bit under a year ago - pre-order - the racks looked like this . The two outdoor - side-of-garage racks were empty, the rack on the top of the stoop by my office was empty.  And the inside-the-screened-porch racks were mixed (small one half-full, large one was full on bottom and half-full on top).   I ordered 3 Facecords in September of 2022 .  Oak, Cherry and Hickory.  We used a lot of wood last year - here's January's status .   Today, here's what those racks look like:  The two outdoor side-of-garage racks have been emptied of the kiln-dried wood.  The stoop rack is empty, too....

The last time that I ran a [ firewood consumption ] check-in for this season was seven weeks ago on December 1st .  At that time - which was 60 days into the burning season - we had emptied the smaller sideyard rack (and replaced it with Norway Maple) and had burned about 1/3rd of the larger one.  The two inside racks were - at that time - mostly full. I consider the burning season to be 5 months long - about 150 days.  October, Nov Dec = 90 days.  Jan, Feb = 60 days.  Total of 150 ending on March 1st.   Where are we today?  115 days out of 150 = 76% thru the season. The most-recent comparison is from this past February when I had quite a bit of wood left.  See this post .  At that point, the two inside racks were full (just like now), the stoop rack was full and there was a pile inside the garage.   Let's look at the racks as they stand today.  First...the two inside racks are, indeed full.  No photos of those. ...

I might have jumped the gun.  With what, you ask?  The moisture reading on the recently split Norway Maple firewood.  As a reminder, we had a very large Norway Maple (that was in a bad state of decline) removed from our front yard this Fall .  I had the wood processed into rounds and brought to the back of our property to begin to dry out.  By the end of October, I started to split the rounds .  And they were HEAVY and wet.  (or....as they say in the firewood business:  'green').  I wanted to track how fast this Norway Maple firewood would dry out and become 'seasoned' enough to be able to burn.  The pros say that you need to get the moisture level down below 20% to be dry-enough to burn properly.  F rom the time that I began to split the wood to 18 days later (2.5 weeks), I was reading the moisture level to be 50% .   Now...if you read any of the firewood online forums, you'll see that A LOT of people claim that Norway Ma...

In October, I began to split all the Norway Maple wood that came from the mature tree that we took down in our front yard .  The crew that took the tree down processed the trunk and major limbs into rounds of various lengths and put them up on a rack in the far back of our property.   That work continued in November and December.   In November, I decided to begin to attack some of the large pieces with a splitting wedge to get some smaller pieces that I could split with my axe and that's been really helpful in getting some of the larger pieces processed.  I've used the fact that some of the wood is just sitting on the ground as a sort-of forcing function to compel me to split those pieces first.  They're the largest ones because I couldn't lift them up on the rack due to their weight.  By November 11th, I noted that some of the freshly-split Norway Maple was *VERY* high in moisture with a reading of 50% moisture .  But, a month later, it was ...

A few days ago, I posted some photos and an update on my annual firewood consumption and speculated that I was moving faster than I needed to (in terms of burning) and that without some intervention, I would likely consume my entire stockpile of firewood before the end of the burning season - March 1st, 2023.  In that post , I talked about how I might extend my supply by cutting in some of the recently-split Norway Maple firewood from the large tree in our front yard that we took down.   It was just a couple of weeks ago that one of my fresh, just recently-split pieces of Norway Maple was registering 50% on my moisture meter .  Norway Maple has a reputation of being VERY fast drying and gets down to sub-20% moisture very quickly.  But, how quickly?   Here's what the moisture meter is showing on a few different pieces of this same Norway Maple firewood after just 2+ weeks: What the what?  13 and 14 percent?  Anything under 20 is ready to be b...

We're now in the thick of things firewood-wise.  The burning will only increase in both frequency and length of sessions as we head towards the heart of Winter and the holiday season when we're hanging around the house more and more.  So, where do we stand?   Today marks the two-month mark.  Our firewood was delivered on September 30th, so that means we've burned through 60 days of wood.  With 90 days to go (that gets us to March 1st).  We had three facecords delivered on September 30th .  And, at that time all of the racks were empty but for the bottom of the porch rack and about 15 pieces on top of that.  What does it look like today?   The porch racks are full (mostly).  See below for the short one, followed by the double.  Note the wood on top of the double.  I'm claiming that's an equivalent amount that was remaining this Spring.   Outside, the smaller of the two racks has been exhausted.  The larg...

I mentioned that I started to split some of the Norway Maple tree firewood that resulting from the removal of the large tree in our front yard.  In a post a couple weeks ago, I talked about how I've started to split some of the larger rounds with my axe.  I've taken a slow-but-steady approach to the project and will continue to split this wood over the next few months.  The first splits resulted in pieces that I am putting up on a rack to season for the year.  I did, however, want to begin to track the moisture content of this freshly cut, green wood.  Here, below, is a photo of my moisture meter showing 50% moisture in this piece:  The moisture level that split, dry firewood needs to get to in order to be considered 'seasoned' is below 20% - so we have a long way to go.  Norway Maple is known for 'drying quickly' , so I'll test this theory by trying to track these freshly split pieces in the coming weeks/months.  Will it be ready this season?...

As I mentioned in the post showing how we had our Norway Maple tree removed , we had the wood processed into rounds.  16 to 18" rounds.  That I could split as they dried out.  I wanted to see how hard these were going to be, so I put one of the larger rounds up on another one and began chopping with my axe.  I was able to split the round into about 40 different pieces.  Knowing I pay between 25 and 40 cents per piece of firewood, that means that one round processed into about $12-$15 of firewood.  Currently unseasoned firewood, but....still...firewood.  Here, below, is a look at the wood that came from just ONE round split by hand: As I empty out one of the racks close to the house, I'll start to fill it with this Norway Maple split wood.  Based on what I read on the Web, it doesn't take long for Norway Maple to season from green to 20% in six to eight weeks . That means...that we'll be able to burn this stuff THIS SEASON if I run out of wood....

'Tis the season for firewood delivery in our house.  This year, I ordered three Face Cords for delivery from The Grove Firewood out in Sugar Grove.  1 Oak, 1 Cherry and 1 "SuperMix" - which is a combo of oak, cherry, hickory and birch (normally).  They didn't have any birch this season (so far), so my mix was heavier on Hickory. Here, below, is a video of the three face cords being dumped on our driveway.  This is kiln-dried firewood. How does this stack up to previous years? Here's last year's post from early October where I talked about a late September delivery of three facecords .  Fall of 2020, I ordered three , too.   I stacked these three facecords in the various racks - including a big messy pile on the stoop outside my office.  I'll post some photos of the current state of the racks in the coming days/weeks.  For now, here's a look at what the racks look like before I started loading the new wood:

The last time that I did a Firewood check for the diary was back when we had our Fall delivery in October of 2021 .  That was three full facecords - one Cherry, one Birch and one 'Super Mix' (a combo of Oak and Hickory).  We're now four full months later in terms of burning season and it was time to note where we stood in terms of tracking how much is left and whether we need to reorder.   Looking back at that October post , it seems that I started the season with the 'inside racks' being mostly full.  That meant that I filled up the two outdoor racks, the stoop rack (plus a side pile) and a stand-alone stack in the garage.   Where are we standing today?  The outdoor racks have been basically exhausted.  My strategy was to pull from these racks early in the season - while the weather was nice and we didn't have a lot of snow on the ground.  As things got colder and there was snow, I'd move to the stoop and garage racks.  That worked...

Back a week or so ago 1 , we had our Fall delivery of firewood delivered to kick off the burning season.  This year, I ordered (again) from The Grove Firewood out in Sugar Grove.  This is the second time I've ordered from them having been pretty happy earlier this Spring with a couple of face cords.   Here, below, is the delivery being dumped on our driveway.  This represents three face cords - a full face cord of Cherry, full face cord of Birch, and a facecord of their "Supermix".  That "Supermix" is a combo of Oak, Hickory and Cherry, so the driver mentioned that since I bought a separate face cord of Cherry, he went 50/50 with Hickory and Oak.  This is the first year that I've bought Hickory wood - where I normally buy Oak, Cherry and Birch. That load of three face cords is between six hundred and seven hundred pieces of firewood and is the same amount that I bought last Fall.  Here's the post showing three facecords of Birch, Cherry and Oak (o...

Last Summer, I built a few firewood racks in our yard based on scrap wood that I scavenged from our neighbor's dumpster.  I put two of them next to the house and loaded them with bought firewood .  And, I built an additional one back by where our fire pit is located and loaded it with scavenged Ash firewood .  Last Fall, I also acquired even more firewood from a neighbor and ended up stacking that on a couple of two-by-fours with the hope of being able to process it this Spring.   With my brand new battery-powered chainsaw ( gloves here) , I began to cut down SOME of the larger pieces to get em into a spot where I can process the rounds.  That started, but I didn't get it all done.   As part of my Spring-time " order of operations " list, we're going to be expanding our beds.  In order to do that properly, I needed to move that existing pile of Ash rounds to a new spot.  Hence, the creation of a new firewood rack.  I built this on...

Recently, I was working in my office early one morning when I heard the BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP that comes with the backing up of a large truck.  It sounded close, so it got me out of my desk chair to look outside.  And, that's the exact moment when I remembered that I reordered some firewood from Best Firewood.  I was the first delivery of the day it seemed.  I walked out the front door and saw the guys unloading - by hand - our two face cords.  One of Cherry.  And the other of 'mixed hardwoods'.   Like I did last Fall, I decided to forgo paying for stacking and had them drop the face cords on the driveway, close to where I intend to bring it around the back.    Here they are unloading: And here's the beginning of the big pile.  They started with the "mixed hardwoods" and the guy on the top of the truck is pulling the cherry firewood. It was just Friday that I posted about how we were down to around fifty pieces of firewood in ...

Here's a look at the five firewood racks that we have in and around our house.  (I have another aack at the back of the property, but we use that one for fire pit wood.) These were full with Oak, Cherry and Birch early this Fall and by early January,  we've just about completely exhausted the supply.  First, the pair of outdoor racks along the fence line.  On the left, you see some of the recently split Ash (or Walnut??).   On the right, you see some of the unprocessed Norway Maple that came down this Summer.   I've just ordered another two Face Cords of wood that will be delivered next week to fill these up, but I'm thinking I should get the rounds out first so I can split them this Winter. Next up, below, is the Oak rack that I keep on a side stoop. Two months ago, it was full .  Today, it is empty but for a coupe of pieces that I'm keeping on hand to test moisture content over time. Now, we move into the screened porch.  The double ra...

We're moving into the cooler temperatures around here that means that the pace at which we burn through our firewood stash increases.  We've been using our screened porch a lot more this Fall and that means that we're burning in two fireplaces - the family room and the porch.  Based on the rumor'd 'firewood shortage' that we were facing, I ordered early.  In late August, we had three face cords delivered and I stacked them on our new firewood racks outside .   At that time (Late August), we had all five racks full .  Here's where we are today - below.  First the inside racks.  You can see that they are all full - with some wood on top of each: Next is the Oak rack outside of my office door (below).  That one, too, is untouched and fully loaded.   Next up is the Cherry rack outside (below).  This was FULL of Cherry firewood inside the rack and loaded on top with mixed hardwoods.  Today, it is about 1/3rd of the way full,...

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos of a lot of the three face cords of firewood that we had delivered earlier this week.  Those three racks are a combo of Birch, Cherry and Oak Firewood and two of them were built this Summer in preparation for the delivery.  In that post , I mentioned that there are the two additional - indoor racks - that I also filled.  This post shows off those two racks. Well...it shows off all of one of them (the one in the background that is loaded with Birch) and half of the rack in the foreground (That is loaded with Cherry firewood).  The rack in the foreground is a two-level rack - you can see what the full thing looks like here - but we're using the top section as a sort-of plant stand with various potted plants.  So, for now, we're only filling this rack about half-way.  When the weather turns, I'm sure we'll move the plants indoors and I'll take that top part of the rack and fill it with Oak firewood.  That way,...

Earlier this week, I showed a couple of photos of the firewood delivery that we received from Best Firewood that included Birch, Cherry and Oak seasoned firewoods.  In that post, I mentioned that we ordered 33% more wood than we normally do - because of both the projected 'shortages' that might be coming for firewood AND the fact that I'm assuming that due to COVID, we're going to spending a lot more time around the house.  I built a couple of firewood racks to get ready for this delivery as I knew I wasn't going to have enough room on the current rack situation.  Here's a post showing one of the racks that I put a little cedar roof on top of and built with scrap lumber (not all of it treated).  This post is showing off three of my now 'outdoor racks'.  The past few years, I've kept all the wood that I've bought exclusively inside the screened porch and off the little covered stoop outside my office.  I'll post tomorrow to show those...