Got Wood!

My Dad had more impact on my life than any other person I can think of. He grew up on a subsistence farm in the hills of Southern Indiana. As a kid, I often grew tired of hearing all the hard life stories of the depression era that he loved to tell. However, now that he is gone, those stories come back to me more often than I would have imagined. One of those stories involved "putting up wood" for the long winter heating system as the only heat my Dad's family had came from their wood stove.

I thought of him today as I finished putting up my wood for the winter at our cabin in Northern Wisconsin. Late last fall I loaded up my chain saw into the ATV trailer and headed down into the woods to cut a large oak tree that had fallen during a storm. After the better part of a couple hours, I had the tree all cut up in fireplace length logs. I then loaded the heavy logs into the ATV trailer and after many trips, I had a large pile of logs next to the woodshed ready to be split.

Two days ago I finally got around to renting a gasoline powered log splitter from town. After another two hours of back breaking work, all the logs were split and ready to be stacked under the lean-to of the shed to dry out. Today, I spent another couple hours stacking that wood. All told, I have about 8 hours of heavy labor into my wood. Each stick of wood under the lean-to had to be handled at least 5 times, from cutting, to loading, to stacking. Upon completion of this task, I thought to myself, that I will never again complain about the prices charged for firewood. In fact, $80-$100/fireplace cord sounds like a bargain!

It was then that I thought of my Dad who had to put up wood every autumn...except he had an axe and a crosscut saw instead of a gasoline chain saw; a horse and wagon instead of an ATV; and a wedge and maul instead of a gasoline powered splitter. Finally, he wasn't doing this for exercise and ambience like I am, he was doing it to supply the only heat his family would have for their home during the upcoming winter.

Kind makes you appreciate the life we have. (Still, I'm getting out the checkbook next time I need wood!)