Get Stacking

Keeping warm with wood is an ongoing process. Its still winter, and the sap is down in the trees, so believe it or not, its time to start thinking about firewood for next winter! I just had a load of green mixed alder and birch delivered. The fellow came with this big truck, with a load equivalent to two cords of wood, and dumped it in my driveway.





The wood is already chopped, as he has a machine which splits the wood. However, after dumping, the next task is stacking it inside the woodshed.






Stacking wood, or so I thought, couldn't be all that hard! Well - green wood is really heavy, much heavier than dried. I guess that should be obvious, but it becomes very painfully obvious when you start picking up the pieces and throwing them in the wheelbarrow, wheeling and dumping the wheelbarrow load, then stacking the pieces. After the first hour, I realized, hey, who needs the gym when you've got firewood to stack! Squats, lifting, dumping the wheelbarrow - a great all round body workout!

After probably more than three hours in total, I was finally finished. I had four nice stacks of wood piled neatly inside my woodshed. Three stacks were alder, and one birch. Mixed alder and birch leans heavily towards the alder side of things.


The next day, my back, hips, and shoulders were all fine. However, my hands and forearms were really sore - too much lifting.

The wood will dry out and be ready to burn next winter!