Wood Pile
When you heat your home and your hot water with wood you occasionally have to cut wood or buy some. The woods that surround our house are mainly Burr Oak. We only cut the dead, down or hazard trees. Far Guy will probably order a semi-load of wood that will be a mixture of oak and pine..it gets stacked next to the road and Far Guy cuts it into lengths and hauls it into the wood shed.
This week a load of slabs was delivered, they are pine slabs from a sawmill that saws lumber. They will eventually be stacked in the woodshed.
In the meantime, a squirrel or a chipmunk will move in. Chance will guard this stack of slabs valiantly, it will occupy him for many afternoons. He is all about the watch and wait, although occasionally he will be victorious and chase something up a tree. The really dumb chipmunks will be dealt with but we won't talk about that. It is his territory after all, the truck delivers the slabs, he is sent to the house because he prefers to be inside when the earth shakes..but after that..the slab pile is his.
We used to use the wood-stove to heat the largest greenhouse. You could practically stand outside and shove wood in the stove all night long.
My sore shoulder has gotten me out of heaving heavy pieces of wood in the wood-stove this winter. Far Guy adds wood to the wood-stove once a day, the house is kept a very comfortable 74 degrees. I can wear shorts in the winter..and I do!
Having an outdoor stove has advantages. The wood mess is kept out of doors. The fire hazard is out doors also..although an occasional chimney fire sometimes just happens.
This one was real pretty. it wasn't dramatic enough to be a problem. Far Guy just watched it..this was last November. It is just the creosote burning off the walls of the chimney. In the spring if it is dry we will shut down the wood stove, although there is a certain amount of safety living in the oaks..a small fire in the oaks doesn't travel like a small fire in the pines. I sometimes worry about a bug or disease coming through and wiping out all the deep shade that the oaks give us in the summer..this spring we will plant a few pines. Not a forest full, not in rows that can be a fire trail ..just here and there throughout the woods:)
You must go through a lot of wood. I've always wondered how people who heat with wood keep the fire going all the time, as my only experience is with the fireplace and it only heats the room that it's in while the rest of the house chills. Now I understand better.
ReplyDeleteAdding some pine will make some nice color addition to the oak. I need to plant some more this spring too.
ReplyDeleteMy Hubs has wanted one of those for several years now. Maybe when we add on to the house...Found U, Liked U, and will be back to visit U more:)
ReplyDeleteWe have fun with chimney fires in the outdoor wood boiler...it is pretty far from anything it can harm and it has been wet here for several years.....
ReplyDeleteYes, staying warm in cold country requires a lot of back-breaking work. My mother used to say we were warmed twice.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know an outdoor stove even existed. It makes a lot of sense.
Wow, now that's a whole lotta wood! Glad you're keeping your shoulder out of heaving it around. A very interesting post, Connie!
ReplyDeleteThat is an amazing amount of wood and an awful lot of work too. I am intrigued on how your wood stove works to heat everything. I have to read about it now. I am only familiar with indoor stoves and have done my share of chopping and hauling wood with my dad. I love the smell of a wood fire - a contained one that is. An out of control fire is too scary to think about.
ReplyDeleteHi Connie - this is my first visit, and don't even ask me how I found you! You have such an interesting place here; I love the pictures!!
ReplyDeleteWill be back!
One thing I don't miss too much is the wood-burning stove we used to heat our house with -- it was my job to haul make the fire (and I often had to bring in the wood too) and it made a mess, and beetles hibernating in the wood ended up all over the house, etc. Your furnace set up looks very nice though.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting..didn't know about outdoor stoves!
ReplyDeleteAbigail guards our shed from rabbits with similar valiance!
ReplyDeleteLike Rae, I love the smell of a wood fire. That's a lot of wood and a lot of work. So cute that Chance owns the stack! I love to watch chipmunks!
ReplyDeleteThere's just nothin' like backin' up to wood heat when your cold. There is nothing as warm a wood heat! That's a heap of wood girl!
ReplyDeleteYou have the best Saturday piled full of wonderful warm blessings!!!
We have a wood insert in our fireplace. Our previous home had a woodstove. However, we also have a propane furnace in the house and an electric water heater. I have never heard of a wood stove outside that heats your house and water. Amazing! Wood is a LOT of work though. And I do hate the mess inside, as well as the smoke that escapes when you open it. But nothing beats the warmth of wood, so we keep using it!
ReplyDeleteWe had an indoor wood stove for a few years and it does do great heating the house but I hated the mess and the scare when the chimney would catch fire. However, I have heard from others who have the outside stove and absolutely LOVE it!
ReplyDeleteLooks like work! We had an outside stove just like that when we lived at our house on the river... It really was handy and sure did keep the house warm and was better than having the woodstoves going in the house. Big wood pile - some fun for Chance!
ReplyDeleteYou are the only one I know who has an outdoor furnace for heat and I have always wondered how well they work. Yours looks fairly new - have you had it long? We opted for a pellet stove in our living room. I love it and don't know how we lived without it.
ReplyDeleteThat a big pile of wood! Lots of chopping - or do you guys have a mechanical wood saw to help you?
ReplyDeleteCute chipmunk! Is it Alvin?
I am so happy to have moved from my old neighborhood, where a family down the block had a wood stove. It was misery for anyone in the area with asthma. Not to mention the pollution.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute chipmonk! I never get to see chipmonks, just squirrels in my neighborhood. I live in the piny wood region of East Texas, but in town, as you were speaking of pines. Muddy Boots sent me to you. Said she thought you'd experienced what I'm now experiencing: Trigeminal Neuralgia. This is only my third episode in about ten years. But I don't know much about it and no one to talk to about it. As for age, I will be 53 this month. (I know sometimes that is a factor, along with being female) Would love to hear from you. My email is on my blog.
ReplyDeleteBrenda
You will have to get a crew of family out there and scatter them out and dig and plant. That will be fun to watch it develop. I have heard of burr oak but am not sure if they look differently than regular oak trees. I will look it up.
ReplyDeleteWe have an outdoor woodstove too....we have in-floor heat in all our wood floors so it feels so cozy....and saves so much money to use wood instead of propane.
ReplyDeleteI would give my eyeteeth for a wood stove. But it is not in the cards at this moment. Not only my back and knees keep me from being a great help, but Norm's physical strength has gone hill so far that he could not guarantee strength enough for supplying the wood. (sigh)
ReplyDeleteSince our kids are just now going through the horrors of a chimney fire http://stitcheninthewillows.blogspot.com/2010/01/local-paper-was-at-scene.html
ReplyDeleteWhich burned down half the house, just seeing the little chimney fire gave me the shivers.
We also heat with wood, but ours is inside so we have to deal with the mess, loading and cleaning the stove.
But the heat is ever so very lovely!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/