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?

An Hour A Day

To keep on top of the work on my little small holding I've adopted my new ethos, which is to work "an hour a day" on it. This can be any job from gardening to fixing household appliances.

I always want to do more, but the trick is not to burn myself out as I have quite a full day anyway.

Although I have Mondays off to spend with my little girl, I do normally end up working on a Saturday, just moving my weekend forward one day. During my normal working day I tend to get up just before 6, do my chores, have breakfast and leave for work by 6.30 so I can start at 7.30. I then work a full day as a carpenter, finish just after 5 and get home just after 6 (I've no idea what 9 to 5 is like as I've never done it). I then spend time with my little girl and wife, have some tea before putting her to bed (the girl not the wife). This is when I go and do my extra hour.

 

Splitting wood seems to be a task that never ends but for some reason I love it.

In truth it can end up being more than an hour but I do seem to be getting a lot done lately.

I've split piles and piles of wood, planted loads of seeds, maintained tools, weeded the drive, cleaned out chickens, etc.
Big jobs can still be done at the weekend, and most of Sunday is normally dedicated to this, but getting rid of a lot of the smaller ones in the week makes it all more manageable.
Now if I could just get to bed before 11 I'd probably find getting up a whole lot easier!
How does everyone else manage their time to get things done?

Firewood

Our first year using wood to provide some of our heat has shown me how woefully under prepared we were!

Quite a bit of wood lying around that needs splitting and storing

 Luckily we had my tree surgeon brother to bail us out and provide (give) us more seasoned wood when we needed it. The trouble is I had plenty of wood cut from trees that we'd felled, I just didn't do anything with it. Chucked outside in a heap it isn't going to heat anyone.
This year I'm going to make more of an effort with using wood fuel. Every night I'm splitting some wood and storing it in an old shed I absolutely hate, but I also need to finish cleaning out this shed from the last people who lived here (anyone want a workout gym from the 70's or a collection of plastic snooker trophies?). The shed is falling down slowly but it should last long enough to season some firewood for a winter or two.
I think by the time I've split and stacked all the wood and the wood I get from work as kindling, we should have enough for a few winters.

This sheds very existence offends me, but while I've got it I might as well use it

 As well as this I'm going to look into putting in a wood burner in the summer as our open fire is just too wasteful of wood. So tips and advice on wood burners will be gratefully taken! Also doing this will let us lay out the sitting room differently, which in turn might help some of our space issues.

Who can tell me what the top tool is called?

How do other people tackle the cutting, splitting and storing of their firewood? And what time of year do you normally do all of these things?

Keeping Warm

The nights are really drawing in now and things are starting to get a little cold. You can already tell the difference having insulation in the loft and walls is making to our little house though.

I don't mind the cold too much though - not like my wife anyway! I guess it's because I work outside everyday and I grew up working and playing outdoors more than most. When I lived at my parents farm they didn't even have central heating or double glazing (they installed both shortly after I left). The curtains in my room would blow with the wind and freeze up on the inside. I'd just put another jumper on though, knowing how to dress is half the battle.

Our open fire - We now have a second fire guard around it as well to prevent a crawling baby!

Heating our house at the moment we're trying not to use the oil central heating too much, although with a young baby our house is definitely kept warmer than it used to be when it was just the two of us. I'm trying to use the open fire as much as possible, being a carpenter I'm never short of wood to start the fire with and my tree surgeon of a brother keeps me stocked with logs. But the open fire doesn't give off much heat, most of it goes up the chimney, but it does warm the living room and makes it feel cosy. I'd like to fit a log burner at some point but I think I'd have to completely remodel the living room to fit one in and extending the house should really be our first job.

Having an open fire made me realise how out of practise I was at lighting fires, I've been on quite a few survival courses ad grew up being a borderline pyromaniac, I've started fire with friction using a bow, used fire steels and a battery with iron wool but I forgot the most important skill with something like this - practise! Now I up on my practise and limit myself to starting the fire with one match and I might even remove that luxury soon!

Mind you I'm much better than my wife - I've brought her some fire lighters so she at leasts stands a chance of getting a fire going!

How do you light your fires?