Happiness is a Winter's Worth of Wood

This is a first... We will likely not need to buy a load of wood before the winter is over! Oh boy! We have had many winters where we were not only wood poor, but destitute. Several of our first winters here, John and Darwin our very good friend and neighbor, would take Darwin's Belgians and the drey out in the woods and bring in about a week's worth of wood at a time. One winter we had no money and no wood. We foraged and scrounged. One of the neighbors had several trees down, and let us dig them out of the snow. Another time John located a downed tree and Kelly and Lucas dug it out and dragged it home behind the station wagon. Sometimes we had nothing but green wood, and let me tell you that a burning green log (when you can finally get it to burn) may give off a some steam, but virtually no heat.

Once we started being able to afford wood, we could not afford a winter's worth at once so we had to buy another load from a local logger in January or February. That means that in order to load the stove, you had to saw up a log and split the sawed pieces first. No one wanted to do this... EVER... It was always a chore to force someone to get out there and get enough wood cut and split to make a full Heatmor load. One time when I was pregnant with Jaime, the whole family went to watch the Super Bowl at the Palmers. I stayed home to enjoy the quiet and noticed that it was getting a little chilly in the house. So I bundled up and went out to kick down the stove and grrrrrr!!!! there was nothing in it, and no wood cut or split. So at 7 months pregnant I was out there in 20 below weather with a chainsaw. Oh was I crabby.... I made up my mind right then that just because I can run a chain saw does not mean I will. The current bunch of big kids has never seen me do it, and thus does not realize I can. HA!
This year's Heatmor stokers will be pretty spoiled. Here six year old Matthew is learning to run the splitter. This is the second year we have rented a splitter... What luxury. I feel a little nostalgic as I watch these guys and think how they are getting off so easy... It would take us many months to split a pile of wood this size with the ax.