In early April, Kris Brown tries to get caught up on firewood for the next heating season and beyond.
It was early April and time was of the essence to get firewood cut, split, and stacked for the next heating season. We had plenty of wood during the coldest part of the previous winter, but we had mostly burned through our 4-cord reserve by late-March. That’s not quite good enough for upstate New York winters, where the heating season can stretch into May. “One of these years, I am going to get ahead,” I thought.
So, I took a Game of Logging (GOL) Level 1 course for the second time and I began cleaning up some downed tree limbs and felling relatively easy firewood trees around the house. For more information about Game of Logging workshops, check out this MyWoodlot blog.
Stump from a dead cherry tree I cut down.
Cut rounds from the cherry tree.
It didn’t take long before the backyard wood rack, with a capacity of about one and a half cords, started to fill up.
Our eldest cat Beatrice getting her vitamin D on the woodpile.
A couple of 10-inch trees that I felled along our rock wall boundary. Ash in the foreground. Hard maple in the background.
Stump from the ash tree. This tree was 80 years old and only 10 inches in diameter!
Ash tree cut into roughly 16-inch-long rounds.
While it was a thrill to put the GOL principles to work, I figured my best bet to get caught up was to buy log-length firewood and do my cutting and splitting in the driveway. This would be safer and more efficient than me felling trees here and there, cutting and splitting them at the stump, and then dragging Jet Sled loads of firewood to the drying racks.
So, I called around to some local firewood providers. One was kind enough to let me know what to expect to pay for a truckload of firewood logs. He said that the going rate was about $975 for a load, and that a load can range from 6.5 to 8 full cords. Unfortunately, he had a long list of customers ahead of me, so I kept calling around.
A few days later, another firewood provider named Randy Hungerford called to say he could get me a load in the next two weeks. I hung up the phone quite pleased at the thought of cutting and splitting firewood in the driveway, which was only a few steps away from the front yard wood racks. My elation lasted about 30 seconds because just then I noticed that the cable and telephone lines hung low across my driveway. I estimated the clearance was about 10-11 feet.
I ran inside and Googled “How tall is a tri-axle log truck with a picker?” Most results said about 13.5 feet, which Randy confirmed. Dag gummit!
Randy stopped by a few days later to have a look at other delivery options. There was the slope in the front yard, just above the road. This was less than ideal because logs would roll into the roadside ditch below. Plus, I would need to bring the cut firewood back up the hill to the wood racks.
Randy said, “You know what? I can just bring logs in my dump truck. It’ll clear the lines.” And so it was settled. A few days later, Randy delivered the first of two loads. Each load was about two full cords.
One dump truck load of firewood logs, or about two full cords.
I got an additional dump truck load later in the week. Considering the trees I felled, plus the delivered logs, I should have more than enough firewood for the next heating season. Thanks to Randy for simplifying the delivery logistics and doing a fine job of dumping the logs!
