Keeping warm
The cold weather is setting in right on cue. The fire has needed to be lit for the last three days, and today it was lit first thing in the morning and will be kept going all day. And so begins our four or five month romance with wood smoke, maintaining heat and woolen jumpers.
Wood collection and maintenance has been a failure this summer, despite my good intentions. I planned to cut heaps of kindling and even build a larger woodshed, but the finishing of the vegetable garden and fence took priority.Luckily for us, a generous family member brings a trailer load each time they visit. And if it werent for them, we would be buying it in. Which, as a colleague of mine commented recently, seems like burning money.
I've chopped and split enough to top up his contribution which has filled our makeshift wood shed to capacity, and attempted to restock our kindling reserves as best I can. But I fear that again we will be scraping by and running out come August or September.
In our modern society so hopelessly chained to conveniences, you wouldnt think something as simple as keeping warm in winter, would take so much effort. For most people it doesnt. But it does when you are doing it the old fashioned way. Which here in the forest garden, we are. I spent a few hours the other afternoon, ( what might have been our last dry day for a while) chopping wood with a chainsaw, then splitting it and stacking it under cover. I didnt even get through half of it, and I was completely knackered. Getting better at maintaining the wood pile is something that will hopefully evolve into a workable system over time. Some people around here are masters of wood pile maintenance. Wood stacking is an art form. Wood choice, a science. Others are much more advanced than I, or we.
The ground outside is wet. The chooks are foraging around the front of the house near the porch, which is unusual for them. The leaf litter, damp again, is probably already hatching spores of fungus that will sprout as mushrooms. Keeping warm and dry in the forest garden is about to become our number one priority
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| Some of the wood for this year |
I've chopped and split enough to top up his contribution which has filled our makeshift wood shed to capacity, and attempted to restock our kindling reserves as best I can. But I fear that again we will be scraping by and running out come August or September.
In our modern society so hopelessly chained to conveniences, you wouldnt think something as simple as keeping warm in winter, would take so much effort. For most people it doesnt. But it does when you are doing it the old fashioned way. Which here in the forest garden, we are. I spent a few hours the other afternoon, ( what might have been our last dry day for a while) chopping wood with a chainsaw, then splitting it and stacking it under cover. I didnt even get through half of it, and I was completely knackered. Getting better at maintaining the wood pile is something that will hopefully evolve into a workable system over time. Some people around here are masters of wood pile maintenance. Wood stacking is an art form. Wood choice, a science. Others are much more advanced than I, or we.
The ground outside is wet. The chooks are foraging around the front of the house near the porch, which is unusual for them. The leaf litter, damp again, is probably already hatching spores of fungus that will sprout as mushrooms. Keeping warm and dry in the forest garden is about to become our number one priority
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