Today I spent a great deal of time moving firewood inside before the ice storm gets here. I was doing this all by way of wheel barrel. Although the wheel barrel might not serve as a useful tool for some, it works great for me. Load it as full as I can possibly get it and off I go.
I look at this as a great work out for my legs, arms and shoulders. Actually, it’s a total body workout! I am always excited to be doing things to keep myself fit, in shape and healthy. I do not drink soda pop or anything like that, just water throughout the day, and every day. Typically drink close to a gallon of water per day even in the winter months, and sometimes even more.
So why was I spending so much time hauling fire wood inside our shop where the wood stove is before the ice storm gets here. Our goals are a little different than many of the homesteaders out there…the ones like us living off the grid. Instead of relying on our propane furnace to heat our fifth wheel camper (our RV), we decided to make use of all these downed trees on our property and use this firewood for heating our shop and our fifth wheel at the same time.
Our fifth wheel camper is inside this shop for the winter to prevent possible freeze ups. Even though our camper has the polar package with all the tank heaters, in the brutal cold that we have been having, it will freeze up at some point due to the crazy cold wind chills. The only possible way to prevent this would be to wrap the lower part of the camper to keep the cold air out from under it and this is still not a guarantee that it won’t freeze up.
Keeping firewood dry for the months ahead that you are wanting to use it is vitally important for good hot heat. Moving firewood inside before the ice storm to me just made sense. For one it is inside where I don’t have to go out and try to push a loaded wheel barrel on ice…(which might be interesting to watch), but also to keep it as dry as possible for good heat. Our shop is all metal and no insulation, and it is 30’x60′, so you can imagine how hard this is to heat. Good seasoned and dry firewood for us is a MUST!
Moving Firewood Inside Before The Ice Storm Ideas:
- You could move it in close to the wood stove like we have
- Maybe have a dedicated wood shed close to the wood stove
- Use heavy tarps to cover the wood (like we also do for some wood piles)
- Maybe have it on a utility trailer inside a shed or under a cover until you are ready for it
There are so many ways to keep firewood dry, I am just giving you some of the ones we use here on our property.
We are constantly cutting up already downed trees and piling it up near the place we are cutting and then go back later to haul it up the the shop and pile it outside the doors out of the way and keep it covered until we are ready to bring it inside.
I normally don’t like to keep a large amount of firewood inside our shop at one time, unless it is suppose to snow a lot, or in this case rain and freeze for several days. This is when it makes sense to get a large amount inside to last until this storm passes us.
In the picture below we was cutting this summer and hauling to the shop to stock pile the firewood getting ready for winter. This is where I am moving firewood inside before the ice storm from.
Why did we start this off grid journey? Why do some of our friends and family think we are out of our minds?
In Search Of Freedom
Would you like to know why we started our off grid journey <<? It’s been close to 8 months now that we have been on our off grid journey and some of our friends and family think we are crazy. We gave up the 3000 sq ft home (the status life) and sold it and a great deal of our new furniture and then purchased land with no home on it and off the beaten path (on gravel roads).
While moving firewood inside before the ice storm took a great deal of time out of my day, it was still fun, a great workout, and it was just part of this journey and the dedication it takes to live off grid. This takes work, but so does a job. It takes time, but so does watching TV for hours and hours. Something like this takes a little energy, but so does trying to climb stairs on the way to a cubical every day. Trying something new isn’t always a bad thing, it’s and adventure…right?
I shared some of our off grid journey here << and why we decided to take this route instead of staying in the sub division in a beautiful home with very little to take care of. For us it was simple. We wanted to be debt free and live a more simple, less stressful life without someone right next to us always watching what we was doing. We wanted PRIVACY! You might say we was in search of freedom.
Feel free to leave comments below. Maybe you have more ideas for keeping firewood dry and out of the weather? Let me know below in the comments.
Always do your best,
-Mike Pilcher
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