When it comes to firewood, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

I was 8 or 9 years old when my father bequeathed me the chore of getting the family firewood from the stack to the porch each night. Dad had been a timber feller for a long time until an accident nearly left him crippled. After almost two years of crutches, casts, braces, surgeries and physical therapy he was practically the six million dollar man. All joking aside, he found other employ to support our family, and I was given the chore of firewood.

Dad’s Collins number 4 ax, which he formerly used to drive wedges, being as it was so small, was perfect in my young hands. As I grew, I graduated to the splitting maul and eventually received tutelage on the proper use of a chainsaw. Sometimes I lamented not having an electric or oil stove as our primary source of heat. As many if not most of our readers know, gathering your winter firewood is quite labor intensive.

Depending on where you live, and how bad the winters are, you could get by with as little as three or four cords or you’ll need as much as seven or eight cords of firewood. A cord is a volumetric measurement of a stack of firewood that is 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet, or 128 cubic feet. I learned quickly that, although red fir held a fire longer than pine or tamarack, it was also harder to split. Juniper, gnarly as it was, unless properly seasoned, could also be a nightmare to split. Tamarack splits easy, and pine burns hot but doesn’t hold a fire for very long compared to the others.

Each night I would load up a toboggan and drag a few loads of wood to the front porch of our home in Spray. I would stack the firewood about chest high there, and that would typically last the night. One time I got lazy and didn’t stack as much as normal. Dad inquired if I was going to put more wood on the porch, to which I replied that we had sufficient. Around 1:30 or 2 that morning, the old man came and got me out of bed as we had ran out of firewood on the porch. Sleepy-eyed and all, I was persuaded to drag my toboggan out to the stack and wrangle more to the porch. From then on I always stacked it a little taller — better to have too much than too little.

Wood heat always works. You aren’t reliant upon solar panels, power grids, stove oil or gas to stay warm. It’s something to keep in mind even as an auxiliary heat source for your homes. While not the case everywhere, here in Grant County there is practically an endless supply of dead trees to be cut up and used. Start early getting your wood in. Winter might be over, but the next one is always just down the road. It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Have a wood stove? Write to us at shootingthebreezebme@gmail.com!