Firewood Ain’t Cheap Nor Plentiful Round these Parts

November first, now we’re really in the thick of the getting colder season.  I have been spending as much time as I can sitting next to our woodstove, using the laptop instead of going downstairs to the cold basement office to the big computer. I’ve learned a bit about the wood business, that this year according to Henry Sajak the farmer down the street, it’s a tough year for wood suppliers.

Many of the biggest have sold out, such as Allard Lumber that you can see as you drive by in the northbound lane of Rte 91, no firewood on the premises.  Many firewood brokers or people with lots of big logs ready to be cut up are selling to the big biomass plants in New Hampshire and in Maine. While Henry still had wood, other regular suppliers have run out.

My reliable source for kindling too, is getting questionable.  I understand the woodmen’s other concerns, like the market for wood pellets, which many states are harvesting acres and acres of virgin but underutilized tree species and some grown especially for pellets. Instead of making kindling wood, he could make pellets that sell for around $250-300 per ton, in bags. I hope that I can stock up with a good quantity of bags of kindling while they still make it, they produce garden stakes and the kindling are the cut offs from the ends.

Firewood smells great, it’s that release of the wood into the house, bringing the fuel right in, handling it so many times when you’re stacking and piling and organizing and creating new storage areas for firewood. You become enamoured of your wood. I especially like a stack of oak that smells rich and is orange in the inside.

When you admire your spouse because she makes a quick and effective fire, because she knows how, you please her. She learned how to make fires when she lived in Wendell for 30 years.