The Woodpile

Dan here ~

Me again, glad you’re back to read my rambling. My walking has been off this week I ended up with just under 46 miles for the week. This brings my year to just under 750 miles walked since December 31, 2020.

I have been raking and cleaning brush up by the septic system and relocating my woodpile. Why would anybody relocate their woodpile you ask?

When I bought the 2 cord of wood last fall I received it just before the first snowfall of the year. I like neat wood piles and enjoy stacking wood so last year I quickly stacked it into one of my trademark round wood piles. We jokingly refer to them as “whafors” because when I first started stacking wood this way people would ask me what for you pile your wood like that? Hence, it shrunk into “whafors”.

The round wood pile is one of the few types of wood stacks I have seen that seldom falls down. A circle is strong, why do you think eggs are shaped the way they are? A sphere is structurally strong. The round wood pile is easy to build as well. Only the outside perimeter is carefully stacked, then the whole middle is just thrown in. This allows the center to let air pass through and the gaps created as the round pile is laid leads to large holes for the air to enter. The top is crowned and left with as many pieces as possible bark side up to shed water. They work great.

I once had one in Rangeley that held between 8-9 cord of wood. The snow piled on top of it and froze and I picked the wood out revealing an igloo. Kinda like a snow made wood shed

That all said, why did I move the woodpile? I wanted the wood to use in the outside fireplace. I figured to mix some in with the softwood which is what I find most abundant lying around and can easily gather. I do not want the large pieces that they delivered because I want to be able to get coals for cooking without waiting hours to get them. Neither do I want to wait hours for the fire to die out at the end of the evening. So I am splitting all the wood finer and re-stacking on the other side of the drainage ditch and out of the area I created last year for parking when company arrives.

Playing with the wood and cleaning up the woods to find the spot to build the pile (still have another one to build) was what led to my decreased walking. I enjoy playing with the wood and want to get it done before the pesky black flies get here. I killed my first mosquito the other night by the fire as I sat and enjoyed some magnificent sunsets ending several of the last few days. 

I often enjoy the time of evening just after the sun sets, before it gets full dark.

I had thought of using some of the left overs from Rona 15 for it's back, but think I have ruled that out. When looking over the cut offs from the sashing strips and seeing how many of them there is, I could see another quilt lying there that just needed a few more pieces added to be sewn into the mix. 

The leftover piano key border from the last quilt will probably be added to and used as the border for Rona 16. You’ll have to wait to see what I’ve got going this time.

Until next time, enjoy your weekend, hopefully any snow will be gone by then. And remember: where ever you go, there you are, if I’m supposed to meet you there and you get there first, draw a blue line where we planned to meet. If I get there first, I’ll rub it out.