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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Winter Woodcutting


Wood cutting is a bit of a preoccupation for those of  us still retaining our wood heaters.
The price of electricity has gone up so much and is rising again that I pulled the plug on the electrical heating.
I quite enjoy wood cutting. Its good sweat work.
We found a fallen dead tree and got a bit of wood but a lot of it had turned to mud.
Nature at work, compost before our eyes, home to many small insects in the life cycle.
We also felled a standing dead tree, now that is goooood wood!



After some good labour, a time to relax and have a bbq of lamb steaks, sausages and potato slices with broccoli and onion stirfry in soy and chilli. 
Sitting back enjoying the "silence"
because there is no real silence in the bush of course, it is just the absence of the human din.
There is easily five different types of birds calling. The rustle of upper eucalypt leaves and the hiss and crack of the fire. 
The smell of sawdust on my clothes from the peppermint gum.



I could sit here till the moon rises through the trees and the frost settles all around.

8 comments:

  1. A great post. I could smell the forest and love the look of the camp stove.
    We need a load of wood for home. Plenty at the shack. You are fortunate to have a ute etc. Good for you.
    I love wood fires but do feel guilty about smoke in South.
    Do you have a wood heater?
    Our last shack had the best wood heater I've ever seen or used.
    Keep warm.
    Chris

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  2. What a lovely evocative post. Thanks.

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  3. Love your woodshed and BBQ area! Missing a wood fire greatly!

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  4. We have a wood mountain - my husband loves to cut and split wood - we probably have enough to last for ten years! It's to feed two wood-heaters - one in the house and one in the studio and I don't think I would heat any other way.
    Chris, if the wood is good and dry and the wood heater is efficient, once the heater is lit there is little or no smoke. And now that we are importing a proportion of our electricity from the mainland (produced by burning brown coal), you should feel absolutely no guilt about heating with wood. Also, do you have any idea of the amount of biomass torched annually by FT and co? The amount burned by the combined woodheaters in the state is minute by comparison. I negate any small feelings of guilt that might creep in by reminding myself that we heat our water with solar and generate a proportion of our power with solar panels - so we are "offsetting" our wood-burning! Also using the residue charcoal and ash as biochar dug into the garden is a great idea.
    I think electric heating is becoming unaffordable - like you, Tanya, we'll be using wood for a long time yet.

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  5. Wood heaters are wonderful - your bones get warmed through the firewood collection then the wonderful heat.

    Lucky we aren't in town where they are trying to stop woodfires - and lucky to have a heat option rather then the extortinate local fees.

    We are lucky we have an oven built into our heater, as well as the flat top to cook on - perfect for slow cooked casseroles and soups.
    The bush is so lovely at this time of the year - so still and sharp smelling :)

    Lovely post Tanya !

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  6. I love to hear tales about wood cutting because it's a big part of our life...to me it's like poetry.

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