Why I quit cutting firewood

I did the math. It’s probably not the math you’re thinking of. Not how many BTU’s (British Thermal Units) from a certain species of wood you could get.

Also not a comparison of the cost of a cord of wood versus the electricity you would use for heating on any given winter.

The upside is a free wood cutting permit to harvest up to eight cords of wood for personal use. It didn’t used to be that way.

My math doesn’t even consider the cost of a saw, trailer, vehicle to tow a couple tons of wood, or the fuel, oil, chains, sharpening and saw maintenance, although that’s certainly worth considering.

Don’t get me wrong. I went out every spring, and if needed in the Fall, to cut the five-plus cords of wood my household would burn every winter. We heated exclusively with wood via an intake in the ceiling over the stove that forced the hot air throughout the house.

In the dead of winter when the kids come in from playing in the snow, they’d gather around the wood stove and drink hot chocolate. On frosty school days, they would jump out of bed wrapped in a blanket as I stoked the fire to get it out of the 60s. Really very lovely memories.

Then why the change of heart?

Well it certainly got harder when I got into my 50s. As well, there is a danger cutting wood by yourself.

After one late afternoon of sawing, when exhausted, I could barely lift the saw, I let it slip into idle, with the chain still moving as it touched my pant leg for a hot moment tearing a nice gash in my leg.

Calling my dentist, Dr. Mark Francis, he told me to meet him at his office where he put in some nice smooth stitches. But not even that incident got me to shy away from wood cutting. I vowed to be more careful and find someone, anyone, who could make sure I stayed alive out in the woods.

No. None of those items I just mentioned were why I no longer trek into the forest to cut firewood.

After years of cutting wood, driven by my role as provider for the family (a role for which I felt great satisfaction), the real reason I hung up my trusty Stihl 029 struck me like a thunderbolt and the math became obvious.

Here’s how the math worked out.

I cut down the tree.

Then cutting it into more manageable lengths I could load into the trailer, that was the first time I put my hands to the wood.

• Rolling the big rounds towards the trailer.

• Lifting the big rounds into the trailer.

• Stacking the rounds neatly in the trailer to maximize space.

• Arriving home, unloading the rounds into a big heap.

• Cutting down the rounds into neat 19-inch lengths to easily fit in the stove.

• Splitting the large rounds into stove-sized pieces.

• Stacking the five cords of split wood.

• Loading the wheelbarrow with enough wood for a few days and parking it on the deck near the sliding glass door.

• Loading a few hours of wood into a hand carrier and parking it next to the wood stove.

• Lastly, firewood goes into the wood stove. Mission accomplished.

So there’s the math if you haven’t been following my logic. And therein came the epiphany.

I handled each piece of firewood 10 times.

Ten times!

My mind immediately fell back to a memory where I had been camping with some First Nations friends up in Canada. We all set out to gather some firewood for the night. My native friends quickly got a small fire going and sat on some stumps close to the fire, warming themselves and chatting amicably while the rest of us, sweat pouring off our brows, gathered enough wood for a good sized bonfire, enough to signal the International Space Station.

As we tossed more wood on the fire, my Blackfoot and Crow friends, stopped their conversation and looked at us annoyed. We (Americans) had done most of the work and here they sat with their feathers obviously ruffled, having to move the stumps they were so comfortable on back from the heat of the blaze.

Finally, Vincent Yellow-Old Woman, looked up at us and declared loudly, “White man build big fire. Keep warm gathering wood!”

We all laughed. But he was right.

Those words took years to come back on me, and they did it with some added common sense math. Indeed, I was staying warm gathering wood. A lot of wood. Not any more.

However, I’ll gladly come to your house and enjoy the warmth and ambiance of your wood fire, knowing the effort it took to make it happen.