Laziness - The mother of invention. My firewood situation.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, but they are wrong. Laziness is the mother of invention. I guess in that regard necessity works too since if your lazy it's necessary that you find an easier way to do stuff. I'm always trying to do things the easiest way possible. Some people take great pride in doing everything the hard way. I look up to them in many ways, but I still prefer getting a lot done in the smallest amount of time possible.
Handling is one area I focus on. What do I mean by handling? Well, if you have ever worked a construction site or any job where materials are constantly having to be moved then you'll understand handling. When I have a lot of material of any kind, the first step I think about is moving it where it goes. My focus is always on where and how to move it so that it only has to be done once. It's actually a much bigger deal than it sounds and it's the first thing taught in many areas like construction and manufacturing. If you are always moving your material than you aren't producing anything so the goal is only touch it once and ensure you've put it where you need it the most.
I have thought long and hard about how to apply this to my firewood processing. It always seemed like so much of this work was just in handling the wood multiple times. It always bothered me that the firewood had to be handled many times from the tree being cut to the firewood being stacked next to the fireplace. I set out to develop a more efficient way to do it.
What's the best way to ensure once I split firewood, I don't have to manually move it again until it's going into the fireplace? The first part of my planning began when I needed a log splitter. There are many types but I settled on one for the back of the tractor running of the hydraulics. There are two very good reasons for this decision. The first is that I get to eliminate yet another gas engine to maintain. The second one is that it becomes highly mobile so that I can get it anywhere I have a log eliminating another step where I would move the logs somewhere else to cut and chop.
Continuing in this school of thought, I wanted a way to only stack the firewood once as well as only move it once. Luckily I had many pallets left after building our house last year. Many of them were more like boxes with sides made of heavy waterproof cardboard or sides made out of wire like a basket. This gave me the idea to carry a pallet box on the front of the tractor whenever going to split wood. I would split the wood and stack it in the pallet box, then carry the full pallet box of wood with the tractor to where I wanted to keep them. Now, whenever I need firewood at the house, I just use the tractor to pickup another pallet box and set it right outside the door.
It worked out really well this winter as I spent very little energy carrying firewood and always had plenty stacked up. Now that I have a sawmill I'll be building a woodshed to stack these pallet boxes in. This way they will last much longer. Having them just sit on the ground was leading to them starting to rot at the bottom. Not to worry, I have dozens of pallets stored that I can make more boxes from. When I need more I think I'll take two pallets and make one larger wood box so I don't have deliver wood as often. See, I'm always thinking about ways to be lazier! Honestly though, the more time you save, the more time you have for other stuff on the farm.
Here's the start of my woodshed... Well, after it goes through the sawmill at least.
Oh my gosh, I'm sending the link for this to the Husband. This is genius. We spent so much time hauling wood across the yard by the tractor bucket load and then stacking it on the porch...though I guess burning the calories was a good thing in my case lol. Now we just need a fork attachment or whatever for the tractor...assuming ours could even handle a pallet full of wood. Hmmm
Awesome. I hope he can use the tip. It's worked out great for me. I also used to use the tractor bucket before I ended up with all these pallets.
looks like you have a beautiful home.
Thank you very much. That's very kind of you.
Doing thangs I'd love to want to do but don't. Power to ya m8.
Ha. Thanks for that! :)
upvoted and following and thanks for your support..(my market report.)
Thank you very much. i appreciate it. And you're welcome!
I love it! I have a big problem moving firewood and coal as I have to get it out of the trailer and up to under our papers (big shed on legs) we live on a hill so it means three flights of stairs and a long sloped path. Doesn't take long but my plumbers knees are feeling it. Answer.? Wait for the cows on our field to go home to the mountains and drive the whole trailer up with our 4x4, as long as the hill dries out and the owners of the cows will drop the fence for me. Two runs and I should hopefully have it full.
Seems like we always have to be thinking of ways to save our bodies from overuse! I feel for the plumbers knees. Mine are no good either.
The other thing we plan is multiple rocket heaters. Use 2/3s less wood, less wood to haul!
Yes! We used a rocket stove to cook on for a year. We could cook a meal with a handful of sticks and a few pine cones. They are awesome.
Yeah and rocket mass heaters have taken them to a while different level. I have plans for a rocket cooking range and a rocket water boiler. We want to build in a similar style to an earthships so hopefully we won't need as much in the way of space heating.
If only I had a tractor!!! The more things I could do :) At the moment I split it then load it by hand in the the back of my truck then drive it the the shed then unload piece by piece then stack - it's a process for sure!
@qberry your article about firewood brought me back to my childhood years where I used to collect small tree branches as firewood in additional to the firewood my parent bought from a vendor
The difference is I don't see how the vendor collects the firewood though. You phots used in this article say it all.
Upvoted
Cheers
Thanks for that. Glad I stirred a memory :)
You are welcome. Looking forward for your futre posts.
You and I are on the same page, my friend. Except! Where you use lazy, I call it efficiency...Lol....Steem on
I'm with you, I generally call it efficiency when I'm discussing with the wife :)
ROFL...Of course!
Good idea man, always great to refine your systems and make life that little bit easier!
So tell me, how long do you leave your wood to season before using it?
Thank you much. I've found that if I get the wood split in the summer, it is ready by the winter. It doesn't seem to matter when the tree came down, the wood doesn't start to really dry until it is split. I've had trees down for two years, that still wouldn't burn well because they were just split.
The older i get the more "Lazy" i get. That is a great idea for moving firewood around. I am going to have to copy that idea.
That's definitely true for me too. Thanks bud, it worked very well for me this year! I can stack them 3 or 4 pallets high as well so I'll be able to get a lot of them in a woodshed.