the firewood palpitations

“All to gather the dead and the down.” (Gary Snyder)

We heat our house primarily with wood. We have an airtight, a Regency (painted blue), in our big kitchen. From about now until, oh, early June, the first person down in the morning makes the fire. We have a mat in front of the woodstove and 3 chairs (2 wicker armchairs and one rocker) near the stove. The part of the house we mostly live in is open, though of differing levels: living room up one stair, our (big) bedroom the entire second storey, with open stairs leading to it. No door. So the heat circulates, with the help of a ceiling fan. There are electric baseboard heaters but they’re an expensive way to heat so we just use them as a last resort. A few years ago we also had a mini split installed.

So firewood is often on our minds. Parts of our land–8.39 acres–had been logged some years before we bought it in 1980 and there was a fair bit of wood around to clean up. And in windstorms, trees would come down. We also had a pickup truck in those early years so when trees came down near the highway, we could take a chainsaw and fill the truck. But now we’re older, maybe even old, and we no longer have a pickup. You’d think it would be easy to just call someone to deliver a couple of cords of good seasoned wood but you’d be wrong. Some years a guy will park at the shopping area in the village near us, an old truck loaded with carefully stacked dry fir, maybe some maple. You talk to him and he follows you back, throwing the wood off the truck so you can stack it in the woodshed. You tell him it’s good wood and you’d like more. Oh sure, he says, holding up a hand with missing fingers. You never see him again.

Or someone knows someone who knows someone. His list is long but he’ll try to get to you. Sometimes he does. Often, not. This year John spent part of the early and late summer cutting up the rounds of cedar remaining from the standing dead (victims of climate change) in our woods. But cedar isn’t ideal. It became, well, a daily topic of conversation.

Then John learned about the Community Forest woodlot. Yes, they can deliver but wow, the price was so much better if you could pick it up yourself. A friend happened to drop by for coffee, someone we love but don’t see often enough because he fishes long seasons, and when we told him about the woodlot deal, he became visibly excited. He and his family are like us. They heat with wood too. And it turns out that they are rich (right now, not forever) in pickup trucks, including one we could borrow. He’d be away but John said we could help them if they needed help with wood. On Friday we went to the woodlot and filled the pickup with stacked seasoned fir (mostly; there was a little alder and cedar mixed in). We also filled the back of our Honda Element, the rear seats removed. The people there helped with the stacking. On our way back home, we stopped for coffee and John took a photograph of the wood and sent it to our friend’s partner; excited texts went back and forth. While we were having coffee, we unexpectedly met with other friends. When they saw we’d filled two vehicles with firewood, they immediately offered us whatever we wanted from a whole lot they had at their place, the result of trees coming down–a big grand fir, hemlock, and alder. They no longer burn wood and wanted to give away other seasoned wood they’d been storing. So this morning, when we were taking the truck back to our friend, we stopped on the way and filled it with wood for her.

When we dropped off the truck, we stood in the sunlight and talked about firewood. Two sources! Enough for all of us! Good wood! I could hear the relief in John’s voice, and in Amy’s too. I joked that we were all having firewood palpitations! This time of year, there are things you want. You want the pantry shelves lined with preserves, the bounty of your garden, and you want your woodshed filled. The talk was of hydro bills, the merits of one wood species over another, even the pleasure of splitting big rounds. John and Amy made arrangements to go to our friends’ to fill the truck again, soon, and then we headed home.

As John emptied the Element of its load of dry fir, stacking it in the woodshed in tidy rows, I picked the last of the beans, and removed the stakes from the tomatoes I decided wouldn’t ripen where they were, in the shade of an ancient fir. A big bucket of them came in to be laid out in a box. Returning to the house, I could smell the beautiful scent of fir as the last wood was stacked. Later in the week, if the weather is good and we can work out the truck, we’ll go get a load of big rounds for next year, grand fir and alder and a bit of hemlock. We never forget they were living trees and we are always grateful.

The pantry shelves hold their own bounty and there’s still more pesto to make for the freezer. In the greenhouse, eggplants, cucumbers, tiny olives beginning to swell. But it’s firewood that gives me palpitations, anticipating warm fires in January, a quilting basket by the rocking chair.