With the help of some visiting family members we doubled the size of the wood shed on Saturday. I’ve nailed in some additional framing (it needs some more, plus a roof) but it’s good enough to start putting in the firewood. So on Monday morning we tossed down a bunch of bark to keep the wood off the ground, assembled the kids, and started packing it in.

Here you see Katie (center) and Natalie helping to load up my wheelbarrow. Emma, Becca, and Abby are probably over at the woodshed stacking wood, Jacob’s asleep, Sarah’s dropping a log on her foot, and Jessica’s got the camera. This is the most recent wood I’ve split and stacked; it’s from the white fir that John felled for me last month. It’s going into storage first so that it can come out last. We probably won’t even use it this year. After we pulled the freshest wood out and stacked it into the shed, we put in two other small stacks and half of the one by the driveway, and we’re about 40% full. There’s a lot of wood out there, kids! But fall seems to be coming early this year, and I’ll sure be glad to have six cords settled well in, out of the weather.

While we were stacking, Jess asked me how much propane we’ve used since the tank was filled. I checked: we’re down about 60 gallons. That means we’ve used about 15 gallons a month. That leaves 740 gallons still in the tank, or over four years’ worth at the current rate. It’s a nice feeling! When the winter sets in, it’s sure nice to have plenty of food in the root cellar, propane in the tank, and wood in the shed.