A winter’s firewood

We decided to get out to our woodpile and put some of it in the shed before the rain comes. Here Karla loads piece number 289 into the truck from the stack, which is four feet high by about 80 by 90 feet. That’s a whole lot of work to cut and split, 225 cords, and we are bushed!

All right, for real we didn’t cut this wood. This year we got too late a start on cutting and splitting our own firewood. Even when a tree has been dead for a couple of years, cutting it down then cutting it up will reveal that the wood is still very wet. So we have to split it to speed drying, then wait. And wait. We should cut firewood in the spring so it has a chance to dry during the hot summer. But in the spring we are doing too many other things to take the time for that. The wood we bought works out to about 28¢ per chunk, and that ain’t bad. Besides, the location of this wood is high on a mountain where we had great views of Deadwood Mountain, where I lived from when I was 12, and clear down to the town of Coarsegold, and further on down to the Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino with its 11-story hotel tower, and far beyond down to the San Joaquin Valley. Quite an amazing view.