As the temperatures drop consistently into the freezing range, we are using the wood furnace a lot. Which means we need lots of firewood. Going through a few dozen large pieces a wood a day, along with smaller sticks to build the fire it really makes me work for that heat. But honestly I like it, things slow down around here in the winter. So having a constant job of collecting wood seems not such a bad thing, it will slow down when we do not use the furnace in the summer. But for now it needs a constant supply of firewood.
The barn cat helps out, she looks for mice and I throw her a little twig once in awhile. She dives into the pile and likes to fetch it sometimes.. lol she keeps me company while out in the homestead.
My tools:
Cordless sawzall (my most used power tool)
Gloves as my hands get all torn up handling firewood all day.
Pruners of different sizes
Tow strap for downed trees in the wood lines that I want to pull out.
Its fun pulling trees out of the woods, something about the raw power of just dragging out a tree is great. My diesel powered UTV is quite powerful, with over a 1000 pound towing/weight capacity it can do a lot.
I use a lashing technique for the tow strap around the tree, which is a friction knot. Makes it easy to remove after removing the tree.
After loading up the UTV I heard back to the barn and dump out everything I collected. My UTV can dump its bed which is quite nice. I just back up and let all the wood fall out.. of course I watch out for the kitty. She tends to run from the loud UTV sounds anyways. But she quickly returns to the fresh pile to see if anything is inside. And to check out all the new smells.
Takes me around an hour to pile up enough cut wood in my truck bed, its okay though its pretty mindless work and I just enjoy doing it while listening to some music or a podcast.
Got a new tailgate for my truck. Its a Stromberg Carlson VGD-94-101, fits quite nice. I bent my old one unloading some wood pallets so it was time for a upgrade. Now when I get my gooseneck trailer the tailgate will not need to be lowered or removed for hauling.
I add different cuts of wood to my truck bed, depending on the stage the fire is in, we use different sizes of wood to keep it going.
Once I cut up enough wood I drive my truck over, when the ground is not too muddy I use my pickup. But when the ground is soft I try to use the UTV more.. since it weighs less and does not rip up the ground as much.
While I was unloading my truck she jumped into my trucks wheel well.. She start meowing at me for attention, you got a wait a few minutes kitty I am busy.
She always gets under my feet, need to watch not not to step on her.
Slowly the pile grows, I stack it near the back of the barn to keep it all dry.
I use my lobbers to cut smaller branches and save the larger ones for the sawzall.
Its very quiet where I live, so I like just working out by the barn by myself and thinking about stuff. It feels like therapy sometimes and quite calming.
Organizing the wood into three piles, large rounds.. medium size branches and small twigs.. Each have their place inside of the wood furnace as I build up a good fire.
Lacking small branches can cause problems like getting the fire started without. Or the fire burning out before the large rounds catch.. Theres a lot to learn about just starting a good fire.
Heading over to one of my forest roads we cut down a dead pine tree that was ready to fall and block the road.
This is some good wood, its dry and no longer green since its dead. Ready to be used, so we load up my truck a few times and bring it back to the homestead.
After a long day I just sit in the workshop and feel good we have heat for another few days, and then we will do it all over again collecting more firewood.
Shortly before going to bed for the night, I fill up the wood furnace with the collected firewood for the day. Its great going from cutting and hauling wood, to it keeping us on the farm warm at night. Feels good, even if my muscles ache a little sometimes. Its all good, I will pace myself. And remember I can go back to using propane any time I want for heat, along with electric heaters. But the wood furnace seems to be the way to go, with enough wood and time it will keep you warm along with heating the water tanks in the house.
You place is really cool. You are really doing a hard work. And you guys have enough forest the compare to me side.
Weldone
I love it too, its mostly woods here but we also have some large fields for growing grass on.
It sure is hard work, but feel good.
You have a nice place and a cute cat
Ah thank you...
Its a win win, you exercise and collect fire wood, a few risk using tools and driving but not much, I always think how much I hate the heat and humidity but living on a cold place does look like a lot of work, as you mention you can always go to electric heater but still I guess its expensive over time, stay safe ✌️
Its nice having activities that keep me fit and are productive.
Here in Virginia the summers are very humid and hot, I tend to shift my work schedule to the early morning during this time of the year. Working hard in the morning before it gets too hot. But the winters are more dry and cool, and yeah its nice to do work at that time.
Have you discovered the sawzall (reciprocating saw) blades made for brush cutting yet? Also the battery operated Milwaukee chainsaws are pretty nice.
Ah yep I got those, they are quite nice blades for tree work. I started just using the normal wood blades but found the brush cutting blades a little later on.
Oh cool, I will have to be on the lookout for them.
Awesome. For some types of wood those normal wood blades tend to work better. Years ago I started using a small battery operated circular saw for cutting small timber and brush. It took some getting used to but whoa is it fast!
The cat looks busy as well lol
She sure is, always playing around me.
Livin the dream man. I am hoping to have a homestead like this in the future.
Yeah man, its quite a lot of fun. But also a lot of responsibility, but I am up for the task and I think great things will come from it.
Hope you get one too, looking forward to seeing you post about it one day.
A friend of mine had come home from running errands on a cold day and later had to leave again, her cat had climbed up the engine of her car and was lying by the fan. Please look for your cat or under your hood before starting your truck on cold days. BTW, your post makes me wish I had a wood stove.
Oh good point I can see how a kitty would want to stay warm up there. I hope she uses her cat box instead of my truck hood.
I feel ya, when I saw other people with their stove and furnace setups I wanted it very much. Just got to make sure you have the time for the firewood collection part of it.
Looks like a good honest days work! Do you feel you have a lot more trees falling now? It's crazy around here how much the small clumps of woods are thinning out. I think a lot of it has to do with invasive species, but who knows.
Sure is, when we get bad freezes we tend to get fallen trees. Also with the recent snow there were some more as well.
We try to leave the hardwoods up, but go after pines as we have plenty and they are the softwood virginia pine variety that is a shrub tree.
Yeah Kudzu destroys large parts of land, luckily we do not have any here I have seen on my own property.
We've got some of that crawling vine stuff too that has done a number on our trees. We also had the big emerald ash borer fiasco.
How great to have a task to do during the winter, and to have the necessary tools to cut pieces of firewood and good company while you search, your cat apparently enjoys watching you work gathering firewood.
What a beautiful winter experience, dear friend @solominer, hope you enjoy it very much
So true, it is a great task to do in the winter. I do not sweat much, the ticks are not around and usually there are no snakes under wood piles this time of year.
Great activity. I saw a lot of dry wood and it was quite good for use as firewood. Stay enthusiastic for you, friend, and hopefully you will always be in good health and can carry out fun activities.Greetings from me to you and also to the families there.
Yep, its all coming along quite nicely.
Thanks I plan to, luckily if I ever get tired of this I can go back to conventional heating using gas and electricity.
You're cat is so sweeeeet 😃
Hehe thanks, shes a cute kitty.
Looks like a productive day to me! So much more fulfilling when you're working to live rather than living to work.
It sure was, and yeah I know what you mean. The feeling of doing work that directly affects me like making heat sure does feel good.
Hello, great job collecting firewood for your wood oven and getting heating, the cat helped a lot supervising, nice post.👍👍👍
Hehe yeah man glad I got it all done and still had fun with the kitty.
Kitty is so cute 🥰 I think she add more fun to your activity even though she’s an attention seeker, hehe.
Hehe she does, it adds a little bit of comedy to a otherwise pretty boring job.
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