[ A heavy metal splitting wedge sticks out of the flat top of a good-sized log; a steel hammer sits on a smaller log next to it. ]
The nice thing about a wood stove is you can find & cut your own firewood, instead of having to pay some big company somewhere that’ll happily triple your bill when the people in charge want a new yacht.
The problem with a wood stove is you gotta find & cut your own firewood. I mean yeah, you can buy it, that’s how we started the winter, but we still hadda chop it into stove-sized pieces, & most of the stuff we’ve found since then (thank you, Wood Dude!) has needed cutting AND splitting. Like, yeah! Cutting & splitting your own firewood does warm you twice! Also, I think my arm just fell off.
Anyway today has been stressy because the news is horrible (don’t look at the news), so I spent basically most of it chopping logs, & finding more not-really-useful pallet wood & weird-sized leftover bits of plywood to cut into stoveworthy lengths. (Yeah, plywood has glue & stuff in it. But you know what it does? It burns.)
[ There’s a couple hunks of pallet wood sitting across two sawhorses. My hand is holding a red circlular saw, about to cut them in half. ]
I keep thinking I’ve found all the wood suitable to cut into short bits instead of saving, & then I find more, which is nice, we’re looking to need firewood for another month at least. I think we’ll need fires, at least some days, more of the year than otherwise, here. It’s all good — wood permits aren’t expensive — but it’s always gonna be a fair amount of work. But I’d rather put in the work than pay for someone else’s yacht.
Today was really nice! We stuck Marisol in Remy’s crate & left the front door open for a while; the house really does need to be aired out.
[ The longer wall of the house, with double glass-paned doors set into it. One of the two doors is sitting open. To the left of the doors is a line of pallets. One holds a big green plastic bucket with a single log just visible inside. ]
… but then Sigdis, mighty hunter, caught herself a self-propelled toy, & not only brought it inside, but made it upstairs before any of us caught her. Fortunately the kangaroo rat got loose & hid under one of my shelves, & Morgyn put on gloves & scooped it back out. Said rat has been deposited sufficiently far away, & all the cats are back inside now.
SCREEN DOORS.
Anyway I chopped a lot of wood. A Lot. Not all of this is from today, but most of it is. Ow.
But that? Should last us a week this time of year.
[ A stack of firewood, perhaps five feet wide by three feet high, sits on a pair of pallets next to the front door. The left side is held up by a tall hunk of plywood held in place by a third pallet and a filing cabinet. The right side is held up by careful stacking and optimism. ]
Also keeps the dog out of the firewood. Because apparently logs are tasty. I DO NOT KNOW WHY. WHY ARE DOGS.
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