Making Wood

They say that those who make their own firewood are twice warmed. Well, it’s been a pleasantly warm enough autumn not to have to worry about that too much, but everyone knows that winter is approaching, sooner or later, and with keeping those wood stoves and boilers going well into June, supplies are in dire need of replenishing.

Back in early September, Steve, a Moose Lake neighbor, stopped in the store and asked if we knew anyone who could help him fell a few trees on his property for firewood. We did some calling together and sniffed out a few leads, but then the storm hit like a hurricane, and Steve found himself trapped at the cabin with maples across the driveway and pines laying across the dock.

“I had wood,” he chuckled. “But I also couldn’t get out!”

Across the area, this story repeated itself, and for weeks the chainsaws have been roaring away. While skylines (and sometimes rooflines) are drastically changed, everyone has wood to cut. By the time we finally get everything sorted out, woodsheds should be full!

Steve calls it “making wood,” and it’s part of northwoods life, whether or not you’re even a full-timer to the area. Someone usually has a fireplace or fire-ring by the lake. For us, between a fireplace and a woodstove, there’s always a need for wood during the cold months. Added to that demand, we now have the pizza oven, which uses aged oak and maple.

While maples are plentiful in the woods behind the barn, oaks are few and far between, and we like to keep the stand strong. So Kara sent the word went out to the neighborhood in case anyone had more oak trees down than they could manage. Pizzas would be in need of firewood next summer!

So this weekend, we made wood. First, Kara had worked with Larry, one of the Fullington clan, cutting up trees that were down in the trails behind the barn. Weaving the truck and trailer between the standing trunks, we hauled the massive to modest logs into the trailer bed. In some places, the trail narrows to ATV size, which meant some serious jockeying back and forth to ease the rig through the space.

The pile in front of the woodshed had begun, stocked with a few logs from sawing up debris in the yard from the storm. Here it would cure a bit before our legendary Christmas holiday family wood-splitting party (which every family member knows is part of the tradeoff for eating great farm food during their stay). First a pile, then a hill, and hopefully a small mountain before it gets snowed in, this pile once split would cure in the shed for a couple of years before being pressed into service. At least that is the general plan, so long as the stash lasts.

Then on Monday, we ventured off towards the lake to work on a huge oak that lay across a neighbor’s trail for pizza wood. Down the sloping hill, crunching the wrinkled, dried leaves, we made our way with truck and trailer. Steve was on board, as well as Tom, my musical partner in crime. We had our work gloves, ear protection, and chaps in hand, as well as the chain saw, bar oil, gasoline, and all the rest. We were ready to make wood!

It was a surprisingly warm, sunny day for late October, and the mosquitoes were hatching out of the exposed lakebed from opening the dam before winter. They buzzed and bit and pestered us as we picked up some pre-sawn pieces and surveyed the situation. Either an oak tree had Y’d at a very young age or two sibling trees had grown up so close together that their bases had almost fused. While one was still standing with a few orange-brown leaves clinging to gnarly branch tips, the other had cracked off at the roots from the storm and toppled right across the trail and into the hillside. The branches had been sawn off at this point, and what remained was a tapering trunk that was almost too wide at the base for me to step over.

Grandpa’s chainsaw can be a persnickety beast, and this day was no exception. First, the bar oil wouldn’t come through the orifice to keep the chain lubricated, then the throttle wire would shake loose inside, then the chain would seize up or need sharpening again, and the process moved in fits and jerks of hurry up and wait. The oak was solid, heavy as sin, and very dense, which made for slow cutting and smoking blade. Soon we realized that our biggest priority was to cut the tree enough to pull it out of the trail so we could get back to the road, then focus on firewood lengths.

A cut nearer the base had Kara curious, and we each took guesses about the tree’s age as she counted rings. Some were closely tight, others wider with faster growth, reflecting the different conditions the tree had faced over the years. The wood was a lovely red with a golden edge and under other, non-pizza motivated hands, might have made beautiful furniture. Then Kara offered up the count—at least 104 years old. So sad to think that one mighty storm could wreck a century of growth. This tree was but a sapling when the Fullingtons came north to carve our homestead from the stump-studded landscape.

But everything has its purpose, and though this tree would no longer grow beside its twin, people would be warmed and fed by its gift of timber. Attaching a strap to the front of the farm truck, we were able to pull the massive stump out of the trail, scraping the top few inches of earth with the tremendous weight. The saw behaved itself long enough to fill the trailer, and we headed back along the winding road to the farm before dusk settled.

The chickens don’t have quite the same view to the east now that the wood mountain in front of the shed is growing. Though maybe, if you’re a chicken, the thought of all the bugs to peck and scratch make a woodpile more interesting than the view of the sunrise. But either way, our wood-making adventures are making progress. Once the chainsaw is back in order, we’ll have at that grand old oak again. Those seasoned logs someday are going to make some mighty tasty wood-fired pizzas or fire-roasted leg of lamb, I’d say. And like the squirrels, we spend these autumn days piling it away while we can before snow flies.

Have you been out making wood today? Just be sure everyone out there is staying safe with those chainsaws. Halloween is for makeup folks, not the emergency room, so we’re thinking about the folks out in the woods and hoping everyone stays safe while working to stay warm. See you down on the farm sometime.