Fortune Favors the Prepared

It is that time of year. I know the sun is still shining brightly, the weather is warm and sunny, and swimming is still the afternoon activity of choice, but there is just a hint of change. Maybe it's the angle of the light, or that the sun is setting more than a half of an hour earlier than it did at the solstice. As unlikely as it seems, at some level maybe I even notice that each day is two minutes shorter than the last.

Still, I awoke one day last week with a stirring, and when I mentioned it to my wife, she rolled her eyes but knew that I would not be denied -- it was time to begin to gather firewood!

It is still about three months away from heating season, but now is the time to hit the wood suppliers. If you wait too long, they run out of seasoned wood. Now is the time before they start shipping truckloads of wood off to the Bay Area. Down there, they can get more than $500 per cord, whereas out here, the price is about $200 per cord.

We've got a good supplier. It's a farm just up the road from us. They sell almond wood (it being an almond farm) which is one of the very best woods for heating you can get. The wood is heavy, chock full of BTU's, and almond wood splits well. You always get good clean wood from this place. They don't bury bad pieces in the pile. We've gotten wood from some places that throw in the big, gnarly burls, pieces that are just miserable to try to use.

So this week and next week, like busy little squirrels, we are going to be laying in our supply of winter warmth. If you get really cold this winter, stop in, pull a chair up to the stove, and I'll put a pot of coffee on.