Firewood, firewood, and more firewood!

This time of year is all about firewood. Heck, this entire year has been about firewood! It seems like all I've really accomplished this year is trimming trees, setting the logs aside for firewood, and burning the resulting brush. 

It started in May with a maple tree uprooting along the south stone fence. I got that cleaned up just in time for me and the cousin to rent a lift and top a few maples that were close to the house. Yeah, that happened in July and it was hot, hot, hot work. But we got it done. 

After all that, it was time to call in the professionals to take down a huge oak that was ninety-percent dead. I made a video on that. Actually, I made a lot of videos this past summer. You can check them out on YouTube on the Holly Tree Manor channel. 

I haven't had a lot of time left over to blog about anything, even the writing. I'd like to say I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but not yet. There is still a large pile of maple logs to cut into round, and even more oak logs. The cousin and I will have firewood for the next several years with just what is already on the ground. The thing is, it's doubtful Mother Nature will let the winter pass without gifting us more. 

I get tired just thinking about it.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, log splitter, John Deere 1023, rural living, country lifestyle, KC Kendricks, romance fiction, Between the Keys, Deuce's Day

Yes, I can

It's always good to push yourself beyond what is easy. Don't be foolish and do something that will get you injured, but take that one step past the "easy" zone. I've been taking my own advice since I retired in May 2022.

When I moved onto my property in 1981, I had a lot of help. My father and grandfather were living and they were willing. I worked side-by-side with them to clear an area to build my house. I learned to use and maintain a chainsaw and how to use a log splitter. Fast forward a decade and more, and the Lord of the Manor moved in with me. My little homestead is somewhat high maintenance, but he wasn't daunted. He'd always wanted to live in the country and do all the things we do. 

Time marches on and is not kind to everyone. He's now in a wheelchair and can't do all the things. That means if I want to burn firewood, I have to take the responsibility of getting it done. 

I have a couple of wonderful cousins who come and help me now. I love them and appreciate them, but I also like to be self-reliant. Earlier this year, the Lord of the Manor, a retired mechanic, swapped out the motor on the log splitter to a newer one that starts with a key. 

Last year, about this time, we took down two very large maples that had the potential to fall and land on the house. A lot of the wood was handled last year, but the large trunks were left to dry for a year in the hopes they'd weigh a bit less. I worked on cutting the trunks into rounds when I had the chainsaw out, and some of the rounds are upwards of thirty inches across. That's BIG.

I wasn't sure I could manage a round that large on my own, but I wrestled two rounds over to the log splitter and got them split. Now I know that if I have to split them without help, I can do it. 

But come October, I'm calling the cousins for a wood-splitting party. They'll get free firewood and I won't have to work so hard! 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, splitting wood, firewood, log splitter, rural living, country lifestyle, autumn jobs, empowerment, self-reliance, a writer's life, maple trees, chainsaw

We need this rainy day

A rainy day view

It's a wonderfully rainy day here at Holly Tree Manor. It's been very dry, so dry in fact that the county government issued a burning ban. Twenty or so miles west of us, several wildfires have occurred in the last few days so this rain is a blessing to the firefighters. I'm always worried about wildfires living as we do. All it takes is one fucking idiot discarding a lit cigarette on the mountain trails to change the mountain forever. 

We've been busy with several projects. The Lord of the Manor is working on modifying an aluminum ramp to more easily load his power chair into the van, and changing out the engine on the log splitter to one that has an electric starter. We've reached the point where a pull-string starter no longer works for us. 

I've been busy with my little garden setup, getting seedlings to the greenhouse, and planting brassicas. Having an abundance of tomato seedlings, I even planted a few tomatoes into their buckets. My instincts say we're unlikely to see a hard frost this year, but if it looks like one will happen, those buckets can be moved inside the greenhouse. It's not a problem. 

Everything here has turned green. I "threw the mower" at the yard to chop the tops off the high spots, but after this rain, I'll need to actually mow. I took a morning and cleaned up around the edges of the yard, picking up and raking downed sticks and general tree debris. Anything large enough to damage the mower blades went on the brush pile. 

We built a rough frame for the sunroom porch and I draped 40% shade cloth over it to see if that would help keep my office cooler. It appears to work so I've ordered a denser shade cloth to make a more permanent installation. The shade umbrella I've used for several years has an unfortunate propensity to fly away in the wind. I'm not buying another one. 

This rainy day gives me the chance to catch up on a few things I've let slide. I want to get my planting diagram into the computer, all neat and tidy, so I have it for next year. I may even get some laundry done! The weather may have convinced me to take it slower today, but that's fine. A little break never hurt anyone.

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, greenhouse, rural living, country lifestyle, rainy days, a writer's life, shade cloth, wildfires, woodlands, log splitter

Gaining on it? Aye. Right.

We are still splitting wood, but maybe, just maybe, we're gaining on it. 

For some reason, we just can't get finished. We were doing pretty good, almost finished, and then one of the neighbors took down a large, dead cherry tree. She contacted my cousin and said if he'd do the cleanup, he could have the wood. He called us to lend him a hand for half the wood.

Then another neighbor at the other end of our adjoining properties had a large oak tree fall over the stone fence onto my cousin's property. My cousin and his son-in-law brought me some of the oak. 

Whew.

We need a few more tarps and bungee cords to get everything under cover for the winter. I need to finish splitting a small amount of older wood that can be burned this season. 

I am thankful for the abundance of firewood and for my cousin's steadfast help. I'm thankful to have cleaned up some older downed trees before the wood rotted. I'm thankful for the ability to be out in the woodyard working on laying in firewood. Honest work never hurt anyone. 

It's been a lot of work, and the Lord of the Manor is pretty tired. It's not good for him to overdo it, but he's hung in there with us as best he can. He's now researching log splitter options. Our splitter has a pull rope start, and it's hard to pull. There are splitters that work off the hydraulic system of a tractor and that sounds like the way to go for us. We'll see what the finances are at the first of the year.  

Rural America is, as proved by this past election, ignored. But we are alive and thriving and we will continue to do so as long as we don't embrace the ways of the townies and turn our backs on honest work. I'm proud to be living RURAL.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, rural America, country living, a writer's life, firewood, thankfulness, hard work, log splitter, woodyard

 

I swear the elves have snuck in more!

 More wood splitting and stacking today.

We are not yet done. 

The pile of rounds seems to be the same size as before we started. 

There are now four pallets you can see in the picture, and two pallets on the other side you can't see.

We've started another stack between two more trees. 

It's been years since we had a stockpile this big! 

We knew the poplar we took down was massive, but we've gotten enough wood off that one tree for 2023 and 2024. We also took down two maples that were large enough to damage the house if they fell on their own. I must not have blogged about that here, but I did over at Deuce's Day.  We still have the big logs from those two trees to cut and split. 

We're still short on firewood for 2022, but you know what? We'll make it through. We purposefully left a few trees lay untouched that fell in 2021. Those are difficult to get to during the summer months, but now that the underbrush has died back for the year, we can take the John Deere and drag them out to be worked on. It's all good. 

It's all a lot of hard work, too, but the payoff is not having to worry if the power company can't keep up this winter. We'll stay warm. 

But it seems like the more we cut the more there is left to be cut. I think we've been targeted by elves and they're pranking us. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, country living, rural lifestyle, firewood, supplemental heat, log splitter, a writer's life, poplar tree, maple tree, John Deere subcompact tractor, yardwork, family

Firewood warms you three times, so they say

There's an old saying my grandfather used to repeat every year. Did I mention he said this every year? Like we hadn't heard it the first time. He always said firewood warmed a person three times: once when you cut down the tree, once when you split and stacked the wood, and lastly when you burned it. I suppose he was right. 

It's firewood season on the manor. It used to be a lot easier to split and stack firewood, but we were younger.

It has been several years since we had firewood in bulk. Having hundreds of trees, we rarely have needed to cut one down just for wood. Enough branches and the occasional entire tree fell that we simply cleaned up the debris and had enough to burn. Having the tree trimmer here this year means we have a lot of firewood to season for several following years and not much for this winter. 

As a general rule, firewood needs to dry out, or season, for a year. When a branch hits the ground on its own, it's generally been hanging dead on the tree for a while and can be used immediately. 

My cousin and I spent most of yesterday afternoon splitting poplar rounds. It's harder on him than on me. He has to move those big rounds to the splitter. I have to stack the pieces. He seems to be in more of a hurry to get it all done than I am. I know it will get done eventually, and with our weather, we have through November for outside work. He's probably coming back this morning to do more.

I'm grateful for his help. Without it, we would have had to pay a commercial company to take down the trees and remove the large trunks. It would probably cost $2000 a tree instead of $300 a tree. And we would not have ended up with a firewood surplus that will help both households over the next few winters. 

My cousin and I talk about our grandparents while we work. We were both given acreage to build our homes on, and I ended up with the woods. I know they would expect me to share the firewood with my cousin, and I'm happy to do that. 

Here on the manor, handling firewood is about more than keeping warm. It's about family.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, country lifestyle, rural living, firewood, log splitter, a writer's life, tree management, family, tree trimming.