Whoooop!! Gotta Love OSHA Training!

As the time draws near for me to begin stocking firewood for this coming Long Dark I went down to my cutting and storage space.

Yep.

I should have taken a 'before' photo. I had a lot of sawdust and wood chips to sweep up.

This little pile would have been long gone if I were adept at splitting wood. They're too big around to fit into the firebox of my woodstove. I'm lucky there are so few of them.

I think these four lonely little logs will fit when I cut them to length. They were hiding under the big logs.

These average a couple of inches in diameter - they're a great size for cooking.

No shortage of kindling!

Here's my work area for firewood. I don't know what that blur is. Since I had just swept I'd not be surprised to find some little circle dust mote images - but that's not what this was - it was moving.

Whatever it was, it isn't in this shot. What the heck. Strange things happen in this old world of ours.

At any rate, clearing out the firewood room BEFORE adding anything to it is the direct result of old OSHA training ... clear your path before you go to use it. Almost all of that stuff was practically smack in the middle of the floor, not to mention a pretty thick pad of dust and bark and bits and pieces.

Now that my path is cleared, I can begin my gather of firewood - deadwood from a shelter belt on a friend's farm. 

The 'shelter belts' are wind breaks for farmsteads and in this neck of the non-woods are often the only trees to be found in any number. Some of them are generations old. Many have been cut and cleared away as old abandoned farmsteads are razed and turned to cropland. 

So if you ever visit the Great Plains ... no, the trees do not naturally grow in straight lines. Naturally speaking, few grow at all here. In this area the 'Tree Claim Act' of the pioneering and settlement days pretty much failed. People came all right, but they had a darned hard time getting their required trees to survive. Very hot summers, bitterly cold winters, harsh winds ... some trees don't do well in those conditions. We've learned much since then and plant trees all the time. But the old shelter belts from generations past are dying out.

That many of our local farmers still have them is a definite bonus for me. I get firewood; they get rid of deadwood and have healthier shelter belts as a result.

When it comes to the actually gathering of firewood, OSHA training again comes in right handy I have to say. In many ways, but in particular it sticks in my mind to be sure I'll be able to get that deadwood out of there. It behooves me to make a clear path as I go along.