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.  Inside the screened porch, the small rack

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.  But, the stoop rack - looks like last February and is 'mostly'

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 burned.  So, does that mean I can start t

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.  

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 - and I've left the i

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 one out of leftover lumber that I

Earlier this week, I posted a photo of some of our seasoned Ash Firewood that has been processed, split and on the rack for a year and is showing cracks at the ends - checking - in firewood parlance .  That Ash firewood was from our neighbor's house pre-tear down and besides the checking and cracks, the wood has taken on a much darker color and when you *clack* them together, they give you that good, seasoned firewood sound.   This year, we had a large(ish) limb come down from the Norway Maple in our front yard.  It dropped during the "El Derecho" wind storm that came through in August .   With the help my neighbor Matt (and his chainsaw), we processed some of that limb into rounds and stuck them up on one of the racks to begin to dry out.  My plan was to begin to process these pieces later this Winter when cabin fever got the best of me.   But, I was over by the racks straightening some things out earlier this week and noticed that some of these Norway Maple rounds have

 Last month - right at the end of October - I posted a couple of photos and talked about how I had sourced some Ash firewood from one of my neighbors .  They had a crew there to take down a dead Ash tree and I was able to get some of the wood dropped near by so I could get to it.  I left it just laying there for a couple of weeks, but recently, I decided to tidy the place up and get it stacked to it can begin to season and put it in a spot where I can start to process it.  I ended up laying down a couple of 16' 2x4's and rolled the large rounds on top.  Everything (well...almost everything) needs to be cut down to size, so I'll need a chainsaw.  Then, from there, I'll need to split the rounds.  This is one tree, but here's how it is looking all stacked up with some longer limbs that I've sourced from around the yard laying on top.   I have one rack in the back of our lot that is 3/4 of the way full, but I also have the lumber to make a companion rack that I'

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, we'll hav

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

Last week, I posted a couple of photos of a new firewood rack that I built from scrap wood in an attempt to get ahead of any sort of firewood shortage that some are predicting this year.  I needed that new rack because, I was planning on ordering 33% more than I normally order each late Summer/early Fall.   I've now used the same basic design on two racks that I've posted about and one more that I haven't posted just yet. This is the fourth season that we've ordered firewood from Best Firewood and third one that we've ordered during this time of year.  This year being the earliest that we've ordered yet - with a late August delivery that you see here in this post. In 2018, I ordered in late September .  In 2019, I ordered in early October . Due to the rumored 'shortage', in 2020, I ordered in late August . And, that 33% extra?  I ended up buying three face cords. 1 face cord of Birch 1 face cord of Cherry 1 face cord of Oak I've a

A few days ago, I showed off some photos of a firewood rack that I built from scrap lumber in anticipation of our annual Fall firewood order .  In that post , I mentioned that I had some additional scrap lumber around (some treated, some not) around to build a few more racks.  This post, shows at the top another rack that I built from the same basic plans.  The photo above, shows this second DIY firewood rack that I built and placed along the fence in the far back part of our yard.  It is holding just about a face cord of mostly Ash and a little bit of Hackberry/Osage Orange firewood that I acquired form next door in December of 2019 .  I started processing the rounds and by March of this year, had the wood stacked on itself along the fence.  You can see that firewood stack in the post here .  It was fine.  But, it was mostly laying on the ground and I thought I could do better.  So, I took the lumber and got started.  The bottom ledge in this version is large - a 2x10 and I had e

A couple of years ago, I built a pair of custom-sized firewood racks that I keep in our screened porch .  They're made of Cedar 2x4's (larger than what you find at a Big Box store) and between the two cedar racks, we store a lot of our firewood inside the screened porch during the Winter.  I have another metal rack that I keep outside my office door and between those three racks, I can usually handle the two face cords of firewood that we order each early Fall/Late Summer.  You can see what two face cords of firewood look like in this post from last Fall .  We filled all three racks and had to pile or stack wood up both in the screened porch AND next to the metal rack.  So, we're already in a position to not have enough space for just two face cords. But, there's a theory going around - and seems to be manifesting itself in the southern hemisphere right now - that there will be a firewood shortage this Winter.  With COVID still here (hi there, pandemic), it would

Back in the of last year, I took a bunch of rounds from hardwood trees that our neighbor took down to build their house .  That pile was mostly Ash trees, but there were also a few Mulberry rounds that were included.  I didn't really know what they were, but after I identified that Mulberry tree - I processed it the same way as the Ash.  However, that Mulberry was alive when they took it down and that meant that it was heavy and wet.  And...weirdly yellow.  I split it over a number of months this past Winter and by March, I had all that I was going to split up do ne for the Winter with just a few larger pieces left.  If you look at the bottom photo of this post , you'll see what the wood looked like when split.  In April, I started to work through a few more rounds including more Mulberry and found a yellow heartwood with purple under the bark . Fast forward to today.  The pile that I had stacked came tumbling down a month or so back.  It wasn't stable, so one day, I f

The last time I did a firewood consumption check was with this post on January 20th of 2020 .  A little bit over a month has past and we've exhausted probably 3/4 of the face cord that was delivered.  That's a fast pace.  In 2019, I ordered the backfill face cord in mid-February , so this year was running three weeks ahead of last year.  Last year, it seemed that the firewood lasted until right up at the beginning of Spring.  This year, I'm not so sure it will.  One of the things that we learned last year is that we wished we had firewood for during the Summer and Fall - to burn in our outdoor fireplace.  So, that means that if we burn through our rack in March, we won't have anything to burn - unless we turn to the Ash firewood that we picked up on our block . Knowing we're now in year three of buying and burning firewood, we might need to consider ordering more in the Fall or doubling the second order. 2017/2018: Ordered one face cord in January 2018/2

About a week ago, I shared the latest look at our firewood consumption and included a photo of the small pile of Oak firewood that I've gathered from our yard .  Back in late October of 2019, we had a snow storm that arrived while most of our trees still had all of their leaves on the limbs.  That caused some snow-related damage in the neighborhood and we had a significant limb come down on one of the two large Oak trees in our backyard .  By my count, there were 27 or more rings on the limb , so this thing had been growing for more than a quarter century. In Mid-November, I posted another set of images that included some of the (then) cut up/processed pieces and talked about measuring the moisture in the Oak over time .  At that moment (November 18th), the piece was showing a moisture reading of: 24.5%.  I set that piece aside and am using it for this post today.  I remeasured the moisture content.  On the 'exposed side', where I first measured, and it has dropped alm

I shared the sad state of our firewood hoard a few days back and mentioned that another split (50/50 Oak/Cherry) Face Cord was on it's way.  Welp, today, it is here.   This is the second year in a row that I had a third Face Cord delivered during the year.  In 2019, it came in mid-February , so we're running a couple of weeks ahead of last year.  Last year, I turned to the 50/50 Cherry/Oak blend for a couple of reasons (they were out of birch, I didn't want Ash, and this was the only 50/50 mix they had at the time) and those mostly held up this year.  We'll burn this stuff up over the next few months as the weather stays cold and hopefully, this load will take us until the weather breaks.   One thing to note:  quite a bit of this wood is split what I'll call 'larger'.  Larger pieces overall and what seems like more heartwood and less sapwood.  Not sure that's possible, but it seems that I'm getting my hands on a bunch of interior/heartwood p

It has been seven weeks since I did the last "Firewood Consumption" check here on the blog with these photos on December 4th, 2019 .  Today, I'm sharing this (somewhat sad) photo showing the current state of our firewood hoard.   On the top is what Cherry firewood we have remaining (about a dozen pieces) and on the bottom is what Birch firewood we have remaining (about two dozen pieces).  This is in addition to the 'hearth-side' firewood storage box that holds about a dozen combo teams. This order was delivered in October of last year and was a face cord of Birch and a face cord of Cherry. Comparing this to last season (2018/2019), we're about two weeks ahead of where we were last year.  Check out the February 2nd post from last season (Feb 2019) and the 'stack' looks similar to today. I keep a tertiary rack on the side stoop outside of my office door that I've exhausted all the Cherry/Birch from, and once empty,  I moved the little bit

A few days ago, I posted a photo showing the newly acquired Ash tree firewood rounds that the tree service left me from the teardown next door .  Today, a quick update on the progress I've made on the pile.  You can see quite a few of the rounds have disappeared.  In that post, I counted 45 or so rounds.  In the photo above, I count 13 Ash rounds and six Mulberry pieces. Where did they go? The answer:  To this new processed firewood stack against the fence in the back part of our yard.  You can see the stack in the photo below.  The firewood is bright and light-colored. I used a combination of a 4# yard axe and a 5# splitting wedge to process these pieces.  Here's a close-up of some of the wood that I split - and you can see few pieces of Mulberry wood (it is the yellowish stuff) in here.  I'll watch and monitor all of this wood for color (and checking) over the next 10 or so months and will post them in here in the garden diary. I picked this spot against the

This is the first firewood check since we had a couple of face cords delivered in early October this year .  As we've done in the past, the guys stacked our Birch and Cherry firewood in a couple of spots including these racks in our screened porch that you see above.  Let's start there:  on the smaller rack in the back, all of the wood on top has been used and a little more than half of the rack has been burned down.  The rack in front is still untouched.  There's that one errant log leaning up against the fireplace, right?  That's one of the pieces that I cut from the downed Oak tree limb earlier this Fall.  Once the rack clears out, I'll drop it on there to season for a year or so.  In the screened porch, there's one other stack that existed against the wall that has already been burned off, too.  As for the other rack, it looks like it is more than halfway burned, too.    And all of the wood stacked in front of the rack has been consumed, too.  If you