New England's Narrow Road

Ready To Burn, Stacking Firewood

firewood stacked in basement — Ready To Heat The House

I bought my cord of firewood at the end of summer for $240 and had to figure out where to stack it this season. Last year I put it in the bottom of the “hole” in the backyard of this house I rent and figured I’d just go out the back slider downstairs and bring it in as needed. I took my cue from my landlady who does the same thing, except that she has an overhang and larger flat area in the hole, so her wood is not right against the house like mine is. (See photo below) My son went out and cut some small trees that had fallen (with my landlady’s permission) and I will use those as starters.

high snow piled up looking outside — Snow outside the basement slider last year (2009)

That didn’t work out too well, since the accumulated snow from the roof slid off (it’s a metal roof) and buried my wood under hard-packed icy snow. I did manage to dig most of it out, but still had quite a bit left that I couldn’t get to until Spring. In fact, I couldn’t even use my slider to go in and out because the snow was piled about 4 feet high!
So this year, after the delivered wood dried out, and between rainy days, I dumped it down the hill using my wheelbarrow and then stacked it in my basement. Some of it is also stacked outside, but up near my porch and not in the hole. I only get one cord because I just have no place to store it. I’d like to have lots of wood and never use oil heat and it’s easy to keep the stove going once it’s heated, but it’s not my house and the set up just isn’t very good. One cord, plus the little I had left over won’t heat this place for the whole winter, so I’ll wait for very cold weather and save it up for possible ice storms when we might lose power. That has happened both of the past winters.
On top of that, I have to order seasoned wood because after August, there is no sun in my yard to dry it out. Ideally I would order “green”, not seasoned (or older cut wood), in early Spring and stack it in a nice sunny spot to dry for months to use in winter. And even better than that would be to have a big, strong, heard working man in my life who would go out and cut up dead trees and then split the wood so I wouldn’t even have to buy any! Now I am dreaming, but I have done what I could to supplement my oil heat this year.
Today the chimney lining is being replaced and soon I hope the landlady will have the furnace cleaned. Renting means you are at the mercy of someone else, so I just have to go with the flow.Related Articles

Best Way to Store Firewood (brighthub.com)
How to Find Out How Much is Reasonable for Firewood (quazen.com)

The “New” Wood Stove

wood stove in basement — My new used wood stove

Last year I was lucky to find a good, used wood burning stove to buy and put in my basement. This picture was taken right after it was moved in by a couple of strong guys who did have quite a bit of trouble, since it’s very heavy. That is the hardest thing about buying a stove. It’s not something that you just go and get and bring home, lots of preparation is involved and deciding where to put it is something to consider before bringing one home.

This stove was purchased from a stranger who took out an add in the paper and my landlady is the one who told me about it. The price seemed right, and at the time I didn’t know about the importance of having fire bricks inside. I’d never had a stove with a brick lining. In fact, the previous owner told me it didn’t matter that they were missing. I found out that the bricks are necessary for holding the heat and keeping the sides of the stove from warping when the heat is high and no matter how hard I tried, the fire would occasionally get hotter than it should. I feel that if I hadn’t added the bricks myself, that the structure of the stove would have been affected.

Since buying this stove, I’ve written a page about my experience and all I’ve learned along along the way, including the exact amounts of money I put into the pipe, hook up, and bricks needed to get the stove up and running. And remember that pellet stoves require electricity to run, and that is why I am not interested in them. I need to have heat when the power is out and so went with the wood-burning type.

Richie Is Trouble

When we adopted our two cats from the Manchester animal shelter almost a year ago, I did not know what to expect. It had been a long time since I’d lived with cats.
There was a time of adjustment and at first I lost some sleep while the cats would roam the house all night and scratch at our closed doors, but once they began to go outside and run and play, they were better. Usually I now get a pretty good night’s sleep, but last night Richie had me up most of the night. I blame it on the moon because I don’t know what else to blame it on.

Fontana goes into the basement and sleeps quietly all night. I never hear from her until I get up and she hears me in the kitchen.
Richie on the other hand sleeps at the end of my bed until he gets antsy and then walks up to my head and sits staring at me while purring loudly… very loudly.

If I ignore him, he will do various things to get my attention such as knock over my water cup, chew on my eyeglasses, jump up on the bureau and chew on whatever he finds. His big trick is to flip upside down underneath my bed and pull himself along using my mattress!
If I refuse to get up and let him outside, he may dig his claws into my feet through the covers or dig at the side of the mattress.

Lets just say that Richie will not be ignored!

So I get up and throw him out and shut my door. That usually stops him for a few hours, but last night he kept on clawing at my door and meowing. Next, I tried the basement. He still spent much time clawing at the door, but I was able to ignore him.
So I am sitting here this morning not quite awake thanks to his antics. Once I get my wood stove going, which is in the basement, I won’t be able to shut the basement door at night and that will be a new problem.

The Silky Milkweed Pod

While walking by the lake a week or so ago, I came across some milkweed pods. As a kid, I loved to find these as much as I did the white dandelions so I could blow the silky seeds away. There is something about watching things float off into the sky that is enormously amazing to children, and many adults too!
This time, I didn’t touch the pod, but took a few pictures because it looked so pretty in the sun. The pod was open and the seeds, attached to the long silky fibers, were being swept out by the breeze.

I don’t recall seeing the milkweed plants earlier in the year, but the pods always stand out.
Before writing this article, I was searching for info on milkweed plants and found a page at Squidoo which has all kinds of information about the usefulness of this plant.

Did you know that besides attracting Monarch butterflies, the silk is used to stuff pillows, vests and other things? Also, part of the plant is edible and it can me used for medicinal purposes. I didn’t know any of that. Once I read about the plant, and how to save the seeds, I began to wish that I had kept some of those seeds to grow milkweed in my own yard.

Visit the Many Uses For Milkweeds page to learn more and watch the video which shows the changes milkweed plants undergo.