Red I bought enough to get ahead and currently have 7-8 cords here so I need 3 cords a year. I have 3-4 cords in the shelter and 3-4 cords stacked outside of the shelter. Some of that wood I did myself the rest I bought. I wanted to buy a grapple load but my wife doesn't like the idea of having a pile of logs there. I am not comfortable dropping trees but I am fine with cutting logs into rounds and splitting them. Eventually I'll get my wife to "like" the idea of a grapple load. Until that time I will do C\S\D as it is still a bargain compared to oil plus I like to see a fire in the wood stove.Not sure about that line of thinking. Certainly if you buy wood you want to plan ahead since it's hard to buy it properly seasoned. Now I cut all of my own wood, either on my own 7 acres or in the National Forest, which for me is 10 minutes away. I do it mostly by myself, and split it all by hand. It is time-consuming certainly, but it also saves money and is good exercise, and I enjoy getting out in the woods. I also enjoy the feeling in December that it's my hard work keeping the house warm and keeping our heating bill at 0. Having said that, not everyone has the time to do all the work themselves, not everyone wants to, and not everyone is physically able to. Comes down to time vs. money - do you want to save the time and pay more, or save the money and spend a lot more time working up the pile? I opt to save the money, work on the wood supply when I can throughout the year, and then use the money I saved to pay for summer vacations so I don't feel guilty about spending so much on them!
Ray