A Cord of Wood for the Lopi Wood Burning Stove

Can you guess what this goes to?

October 6, 2006

YES!! The wood-burning stove has finally been installed.

Receiving Operating Instructions

It looks so good on our hearth and is ready to be used. We have already been busy gathering and splitting firewood. Conveniently, there is a mill nearby where log trucks haul their loads and for one reason or another they sometimes drop their loads on the side of the road near the entrance or even in the parking lot of a vacant gas station nearby. We have found this to be an unbelievable source of free fire wood for anyone who wants to haul it away.

FREE Firewood

In September, we purchased a log splitter on sale at Home Depot (apparently at about half price according to my parents) and got busy.

Log Splitter

Meager Beginnings (9-20-2006)

We have collected several trailer loads to date of both pine and mixed hardwood. My father in law is afraid, at this point, that we are going to go into the lumber business. HA HA

Wood Collection as of October 24, 2006

One thing we love to burn in our fire pit is cedar. We found a dead cedar on the back part of the property our house is on, hooked a chain to it and dragged it to the splitter with the community tractor. While cutting it apart with the chain saw the tree began humming. We didn’t consider this normal so we investigated further. The tree was (and had been for quite some time) the home to a huge number of carpenter bees. These bees are extremely large and don’t fly very fast either. However, they still look a little menacing. We left the cut apart pieces to rest for about a week thinking the bees would relocate. No such luck. So we claimed their home with our log splitter and a little delicate handling (and a little bee spray).

How bad do we want this log?