Do not covet thy neighbour's woodpile

Men and their wood. When we moved into 88 we installed a woodburning stove. It's warm, it's cosy, it's wonderful. In this snowy period it's a joy to snuggle into home. It creates a welcoming mood, a comforting ambience and it keeps you warm.


A bit more drying needed

I noticed a small but discernable change in my husband that first spring after we had the stove: he started to hoard and stack wood. To the uninitiated in the art of burning wood in a stove, you have to burn dry firewood. Dry, dry dry wood. The man who installed the stove told us to burn dry; the man who built the fireplace urged us to burn dry and the lovely chimney sweep who comes every year is evangelical in his instruction to burn dry. Apparently wet wood ruins your flue. I won't get technical but I understand the tar build-up is ruinous with wet. The advice is stack your logs outside and let the wind blow through.

My husband, or David as I call him, took to stacking his wood with consumate ease. If it involved chopping down a tree (we have quite a big garden), cutting it up....any excuse to buy a chainsaw....and then stacking all the better.  Word got round work; he's now the employee of choice to receive any felled wood. We go for a walk and the angst is huge that he can't physically carry home all the broken branches.

I have a theory that it harks back to the old pioneering woodsman's instinct to provide for his family; to get the supplies safely stored before the harsh winter sets in. I've chatted with female friends who have stoves and it's the same with their partners.

Of course the need to build your log pile is best satisfied if you cut the wood yourself but it's still partially sated, although to a lesser extent, if you buy the stuff, kiln-dried and have it delivered to your door. Have you noticed that a whole new logging industry of kiln-dried, naturally-dried, dried-anyway-you-can-imagine dried has grown up? Even if the logs are delivered to your door, packed in plastic bags, you can still build and admire your logpile.

I have to admit that I scoffed at this firewood imperative at first. But then a few years ago I got the jam-making and pickling bug. My need was to have jar upon jar of homemade preserves and jam in my pantry....well I don't actually have a pantry just a shelf or two in the garage. It's that same principle, urging you to get your supplies ready for the harsh winter. Pickling is my equivalent to chainsawing and my pantry is my proverbial woodpile.

But it's got worse. David is away with work at the moment and so it falls to me alone to provide for the family in this cold weather. It's true David went away secure in the knowledge that his diligence in building that woodpile high would keep his family warm til his return from hunting elk in the high country....sorry from his business trip. But still the feeling of providing for ones family is intoxicating.  I haven't gone so far as to chop down a tree and anyway that wouldn't do...it would be wet wood but David has left me a supply of used and ..yes..dry wooden pallets to supplement the logs from the woodpile. With my little faithful electric saw, or my breadknife as I affectionately call it, beside me, I chop away. And I love it. Don't tell anyone but you can call me Virginia aka 'pioneering woodswoman of the Cheshire Plain' and I won't flinch. The higher my pile of firewood, the better. Haven't quite moved on to the plaid shirt yet though.

And it's got even worse. I went for a short walk yesterday and found myself casting a sly and critical glance at someone's very big pile of logs outside their homestead. Dear lord - do not covet thy neighbour's woodpile or for that matter their pickled onions and rhubarb jam stacked high in their lovely pantry. I'm off now to chop, lay and light.