Preparing For The Cold When It's Warm!

With the ground being harder we've been moving some firewood around. 

As soon as it gets warm my mind automatically switches to preparing for the winter. Preserving food, getting the wood ready to heat us. 

 This short video talks a bit about that and talks about when I was on building sites collecting my offcuts. 

Let me know what you think!

When do you start prepping for winter?

Movable Firewood Store

Firewood storage is still something I struggle with here. I can fill up our old tin shed with dry wood but it won't season in there as there's no air movement. The other lean-to part of the shed has been filled to the brim with wood to season but I still have lots to store. 

I have messed about filling up pallets before now with wood to season, using collars to make them stackable. This really didn't work as the air couldn't get to the wood and it made it sweat and then go mouldy. 

I needed a different approach. 

Some Of Next Years Firewood

Last weekend I managed to get round to cutting up that massive branch that fell out of one of our giant oak trees last summer. 

 The branch was the size a of a good sized tree, with plenty of wood on it to keep us warm. The smaller stuff will be alight to burn next year and the bigger stuff the year after. 

I didn't bother cutting up the main bit of cord wood though as I haven't got the time to split it and it's easier to move in two big lumps.

I then had a helper pick up all the wood with me.  

Bless her she worked really hard and kept telling me how strong she was. She moved wood for as long as I did and didn't stop until it was done. A little grafter in the making I think! 

Who else has started getting next years firewood (and the year after) already? Feels good to have some heat in the bank! 

Saw Buck

The weather was awful yesterday so I was a little undecided with what to do. I wanted to make the most of the daylight so I thought I'd just go and cut some firewood up for next year. When you're kitted up and the saw running you don't notice the weather too much, well I don't.

I am fed up of cutting branches on the floor though. It's no good for my back or for the saw blade, every time I skim the ground it blunts it slightly. So I decided to knock together a quick saw buck to make it a little easier and efficient for me.

My new saw buck.

Made from 4 lengths of rough 4x2

  It only took me half an hour to knock up and should last a little while so long as I'm careful with the saw. I used some old timber to make it with so it didn't cost anything other than a few screws and three bolts. 

Loaded with wood

First little batch done, wood given to me by a neighbour - I might add a bottom rail to the saw buck to strengthen it a little bit.

It's much easier than bending down for each cut. cutting the willow we pollarad the other day.

It's a little tricky to get the wood to stay where you want to start with, but once I got going it made cutting the branches much easier. I could do multiple lenghts in one cut and have a pile of fire wood in no time. 

With the light nights now it means I can spend a bit of time each night splitting this logged up wood ready for burning next year (if it dries enough). I'm planning on making up a palletised system for storing, drying and moving my firewood using pallet collars chicken wire and euro pallets. Last time I had them stored in just pallets with pallet collars but there wasn't enough air flow and some started to go mouldy.

Does anyone else use a saw buck for cutting firewood? Is it similar to mine? How do you store your firewood over the summer?