Old Posts- What have we been up to?? 09/18/08

Well... for the last couple of days James has been hand splitting the pile of wood we have in the back yard (thank you Micheal for the splitting ax). The cold weather is coming and that means we have work ahead of us. For those of you who don't know... we heat with wood. Our heating bills last year didn't go over $50, and we love it! The goal this year is not to go over $55, yes an increase, but the cost of fuel went up. Chances are we won't turn the furnace on until late November early December, and it will be set at 65. Last year we "turned on" the woodstove in October. I've wanted to start a fire at least twice already this year, but James says I'm jumping the gun.

Last night we loaded up the split wood onto our trailer and brought it over to the wood pile so I can start stacking. I'll admit it's mostly "dozy" wood (James calls it "punky" wood) and doesn't produce very much heat when it burns, but it will work great to take the chill out of the air over the next month and a half.

We have a group of neighbors (4-5 other households) and we all heat with wood. We get together on the weekends and start cutting. If we have a larger group of people we can fell 8-10 trees, have them all cut, split, delivered, stacked, and the cutting site cleaned up by the end of a weekend. Some of the neighbors who don't heat with wood make lunch over the fire. We call it the "cookout".

We sacrifice our weekends and energy by heating with wood, but I love sitting in front of the woodstove after a long day, proping up my feet and soaking in the heat.