wood processing
wood processing

Originally Posted: 2020-05-22

Like most people some things just scare the life out of me. One of those is looking up at a 100 foot or so tree with a chainsaw and cutting it down. Yes it will go down but my skill level isn’t good enough to know whether I will watch the tree fall or be standing under it when it does.

Fortunately there are many skilled people who earn a living delivering “bush cords”. In the event you aren’t familiar with the term it is a lot of wood, about the size of a city bus. This translates to about 21 face cords when split and stacked. I need about 6 to 7 face cords to heat my tiny home over the winter so the load translates to about 3 years of firewood for me.

Here is what a delivered load looks like:

7 bush cords
7 bush cords

Bottom line is it a lot of wood! Once the trees are arranged like this I no longer fear them. I cut them into 15 inch sections, and use my tractor to transport them to the splitting and stacking area.

I have seen a lot nice designs for sheds to store wood and while that would be great, I don’t see making an investment into storing wood. Others simply put tarps on top, I have opted to do a combination of both. By using some old fence sections from a replaced fence and some pallets it was a simple task to take a few screws and put it together. After the area is filled I will add a few 2 X 4’s over top and tarp it off.

Now the real work begins. The sooner I can get them cut and split the dryer they will be for next winter. And hopefully I won’t need to do this for another 3 years! I’ll update the progress later.

cutting wood to split
cutting wood to split

By Barry