Thursday, March 5, 2009

How Much Wood Could A Woodchuck Chuck?

We ordered fire wood the other day. This is a new experience for us. We installed the wood stove only 6 months before we left for NL, and we had lots of carpentry scraps of softwood to burn in the few fires we made. When we got home, there were some softwood ends left by our tenants that we burned, but that ran out about 2 weeks ago. As winter is not really over yet, we thought it prudent to order some in case the power went off. It arrived last Friday. The power went off Monday.
This is about four cords. We have no idea how much we will actually burn, but we hope this will be a 2 year supply, so that we can always have a year in reserve drying out.
I'm not sure about woodchucks, but I know that this pile took us about an hour to chuck. Friday was a sunny day and the afternoon temps were above freezing. The ground wasn't frozen at all beneath the snow we cleared for the pile, and the higher temperatures made it softer still. The delivery truck got stuck in the mud backing up with the second load. He had to dump the load too close to the driveway and get our truck to haul him out. It was a comedy of errors, his truck was almost axle deep in mud, ours had no traction on the still hard packed ice of the driveway. Finally though, with much revving and swearing, it lurched free.
While the driver was off getting the third load, we had to chuck the second closer to the first to make room for the rest. Then we did it again with the third load so that the fourth wouldn't be on the driveway. We will wait until spring to pile it up properly.

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