So for nearly two weeks we’ve had May-like weather around here. Unfailingly sunny. Nights above freezing. Afternoons in the breezy seventies. In February. Absurd.
Granted that prior to those two weeks this had been an relatively cold and wet winter, with plenty of snow and entire weeks where the temperature never effectively got above freezing, or not for very long. But that was then. I had almost begun to entertain the possibility that perhaps this was going to be a preposterously early spring. (Did I weasel-word that sufficiently?)
And I’m still not completely convinced either way, because while the past couple of days have been cooler than before, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them cold. Not particularly. Nights in the high twenties, days in the fifties, are not cold. Not for any part of February.
And check this out…
I haven’t cut a single stick of wood since sometime in October, and this is how much I have left in late February. And – having hurt my back in the final stretch – I never even got in that last tier I wanted. That worked well.
So if you hear me bitch about winter any time very soon, just assume Uncle Joel is trying for his hyperbole merit badge and let it slide, okay?
OK Joel, just looking ahead…
Assuming that you don’t make it all the way to that back row of wood, and then you refill your shed again before next winter: How many years would it be OK to keep doing that before that increasingly-ancient back row of wood starts to deteriorate in some way?
Not enough data for a solid answer, Ben. But since it’s covered and off the ground, I’d expect it to outlive me at a minimum.
But I’ll probably pull it all out and re-stack it anyway. I like the way the hardwood pallets have worked out as firewood, but their single drawback is that the stovewood is too small to burn for any real length of time. I have to stoke the fire every half hour or so or lose my coal bed. The little bit of juniper I burned this year was all larger chunks only added after I had a nice hot stove, and that reduced the distractions quite a bit.
So when I pack the woodshed this time around I expect I’ll mix it up quite a lot more. That rear tier is mostly juniper, and I plan to burn it next winter for sure.