Firewood? Must be summer!

After a long winter that just didn't seem to want to let go, summer's finally here. And with the hot, seemingly endless days, the summer chores kick in: putting in gardens, setting up watering systems (thank you, water barrels!), some basic house maintenance, encouraging a few dozen insecure 3-year old trees using home-made compost, but most of all: getting next winter's firewood bucked, split and stacked.

The distant sound of chainsaws whining is the tell tale sign that we're not the only ones working at it. Common wisdom has it you'd better have your wood bucked and split by Canada Day (July 1st) so it has enough time to dry out before winter rolls around again. It's hard, hot work, yet strangely satisfying. We pretty much hit that target, most of our wood is ready for next winter and it even looks like there's enough left for the winter after - bonus!

Getting your firewood done is one of the bigger chores connected to living in the country. It's also a vital one: no firewood, no heat! And given our long cold winters and temps that routinely hover around the -30C to -40C mark, you'd better have your woodstove going!

Fortunately our large straw bale house proves very well insulated, using only about 3.5 cords of wood each winter - about one half to one third of similar sized homes out here. That saves a lot of work! And as I'm slowly working my way through what seems like a mountain of wood in the summer heat and surrounded by hungry mosquitoes, that's something I'm very grateful for right now...!