Years First Frost

This last Sunday, October 17^th, we had our first frost of the Fall.  For the most part October has been very mild and dry.  We have had just 0.6 inches of rain and we are 2/3rds through the month.  Often we will have a week or two of nice October weather but this nice is rare.  Luckily I have not winterized the water system in the garden yet as I’ve needed to water our winter crops.

The frost destroyed the remaining zucchini plants and some of the other squash plants but did not get the runner pole beans, which we continue to harvest.

We heat with firewood, which is abundant here on the Island for the cutting.  I mostly get my wood from real estate clients who purchased vacant land (vacant as to not having a home on it) and have cleared a building site.  Some have even cut and split the wood for me.  Usually I have to cut it, haul it home, split and stack it.  Quite a lot of work and it’s messy, but Pam and I love the heat from a wood fire.  We have only heated our home with wood for the past 10 years and only burn in a certified stove.

It is probably not the best way to heat from an ecological standpoint, and if everyone heated with wood it would be a major problem, especially in the cities, but I justify it several ways: we live on the west side of Whidbey Island with almost constant breezes coming in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, bringing fresh air in (we seldom have burn bans due to stagnant air), we use a certified stove, we live in a rural area, and I’m not sure the other forms of heat are really ecologically that good either.  For those that are chemically sensitive wood smoke is a major problem, but so is natural gas or propane.  Electricity works only if you don’t live near the coal plant that produces it.

We burn about four cords each year and by the fall I’ll have this and next year’s wood split and stacked.  I'm always a year ahead with my wood in case we have a severe winter, and it also assures me that we are burning really dry and seasoned wood.

I've already moved 4 cords from this pile

.My wood pile near the house.  This will hold five cords.

We generally burn two types of wood, red alder and Douglas fir, the two abundant trees on the Island.  Red Alder was considered a trash weed when I lived in Northern California and we wouldn’t even burn it.  Now I find it works find, is light (only 2000 lbs. per dry cord) and heats well (18 million BTUs per cord) and is very easy to cut.  Doug fir is the best with 23 million BTUs per cord (white oak is 26 million BTUs) and is still easy to cut and haul.  My typical wood pile is 70% alder and 30% Doug fir.  I remember once cutting a dead white oak tree in Northern California.  It burned wonderfully but dulled several chains just cutting the wood.  It was so heavy I thought I would destroy my truck, and my hands ached for two days from lifting the split wood.  I said never again would I cut oak.  In the same time and wear on my tools I could cut three cords of fir.

I rented a hydraulic splitter and split over 8 cords in one weekend last month.  I lifted each round onto the splitter and then tossed the split wood into a pile.  So each piece I handled twice, and at 2000 lbs. per cord that 32,000 lbs. I lifted that weekend!   Sunday evening in the shower I couldn’t move my head, my neck was so sift.  I recovered.  I’m now moving the wood from the cutting area to our storage area near the house, limiting myself to two truckloads a day.  I’m about finished and the rains are forecasted to return this weekend.  Good timing.