Getting Ready for Winter

We heat our house with a woodstove.  Well, I guess that depends on your definition of “heat.”  The woodstove in the kitchen comfortably heats the kitchen and family room on the coldest days, but the rest of the house can only be considered cool or downright cold on very cold days.  Since the two of us really spend most of our time in the kitchen and family room it works for us.  A down quilt keeps us warm at night and a small electric heater in the master bath, so we really don’t need to keep the rest of the house warm.

Heating with wood means we need three or four cords of wood each year.  We have a woodlot that will someday be a hunting camp, so DH cuts and blocks the trees there and trucks them home.  Then he splits them (with a log splitter, not by hand) in the driveway and then the wood needs to be stacked on the side of the house.  That’s where I come in - I love to stack the wood.  Really, I do.  Last year because of rotator cuff surgery and warnings from the surgeon, PT and my trainer, I left the stacking to DH.  This year my shoulder is in top form, so let the stacking begin.

I make sure that I am wearing my heart rate monitor and my Fitbit.  That way I know how many calories I burn and how many steps I take.  I start with all of the rejects.  DH makes sure that all of the logs are 16-inches long - the perfect length for our woodstove.  Anything that doesn’t make the cut is relegated to the island of misfit logs.  No stacking required - they are just tossed in a pile to use in the beginning of the season when small fires are needed.

The stacking area was swept and ready to go.  I move the wood by wheelbarrow load and start stacking.  The uniform length of the logs makes it easier to keep a nice neat line.  We worked for several hours on the first day and I made a good start on the first row.  I wondered how many loads I moved, but I hadn’t kept count.  All I know is I burned enough calories to have a glass of sangria at dinner at the local Italian restaurant.  

The second day started with breakfast at a new cafe in Hinesburg - French toast and bacon - yum.  Then back to work.  This time I added my knitting row counter to my equipment repertoire on Fitbit and heart rate monitor.  I needed to know how many loads of wood I moved.  

Four hours, 35 loads and 1000 calories later, this was the day’s progress.

There’s still a lot more wood to split and stack, but that’s okay - I still love stacking it (and the calories I burn doing it).