My stash was really stashes--several piles and some standing dead around the property. Got my old Toy pickup back from a friend on a Friday with the plan of gathering it all close to the house over the weekend. Woke up the next morning to the first real snow of the season. So all winter kids and I have been dragging the wood in to the house on a cargo sled, and it's worked out fine. However, we've gone through the two biggest piles and have about 1/2 of the next pile carted uphill, s&s. I figure if I make it through March, we're probably going to be okay with what's left--setting the damp wood aside to burn in April, as the wind and sun should be enough to dry it out, and I think all I'll need then will be short, warm fires.
These are definitely my `smoke 'em if ya got 'em' days; I'm picking the best wood off the pile and pulling it into the house. It's warmed up to a balmy 20F here, and that will help w/fuel consumption. I think I've got a few weeks of firewood on the front porch (green and seasoned together--don't ask). Been eyeing my stash and figuring the days. I have a few standing dead trees that won't be too hard to get to, and if I can get a saw, I'm set.
I know that I'm glad I got the stove in when I did, set up w/wood or no. I never want to play it this close to the wire again, but I don't regret that I went for it, even if I wasn't all buttoned up. My hope is to get a 10-cord truckload of birch logs, and start working them up. After that, i start on brining in at least a winter's supply of the seasoned poplar, maybe two. Ambitious, but I have summers off of work, so I'll have some time available. After that, it would just be a matter of replenishing what was used the prior year. It'll get a little easier from here on.
ETA: just checked the weather forecast. We had about a foot of snow this week--had the driveway plowed Saturday, and again on Tuesday night. Supposed to start snowing after midnight, 1-3 inches by morning, 3-5 tomorrow, and another couple inches after that. Then it's supposed to drop to -15 or -20 after that. I don't think I have any choice about a saw purchase now. That's the only I can see to get through this. At least I know it's coming--will take tomorrow afternoon off of work and do some get-ready-to-get-snowed-in shopping done. Winter's not finished with us yet, boys and girls . . .
EATA: So this got my curiosity up, got out of bed and put on coat and bunny boots and took a flashlight along because there's a little moose that's been hanging out in the woods around here. Went down to the last accessible woodpile, where my son said he thought we had "a lot" of wood left, and pulled out the last five rounds there that I could get without some serious digging, threw them on the cargo sled, brought them uphill and split them to stack. Decided to just carry them inside to my indoor pile. So about four days of wood inside, another week maybe by the downstairs door, and maybe--just maybe--two weeks worth on the upstairs porch. There's more than that there, but about half of it's green. That makes it easy to figure out what to do: we need a chain saw. I've got three standing dead trees down by that woodpile that are a couple of weeks of warm. That would get us through until spring. These are standing dead poplar, no bark left, not too big around, with hardly any limbs on them, so I'm pretty confident that they are going to be burnable right now.
