And here is the new wood shed alongside the old. Together they’re about 50% full. The new woodshed is on the right side of this picture. On Saturday while the kids were hauling wood to the old shed, I was finishing up the new one, complete with tin roofing that’s full o’holes and needs patching. On top of the stack to the right you can see a few bright rounds with dark gray bark. These are from the dying lodgepole pine I dropped a few weeks ago, on whose tall thin stump Jessica has perched the Memorial Birdbath. Everything else in this new woodshed comes from the white fir that John dropped for us last month—there’s just over a cord of it. This wood is much lighter than it was, indicating that it’s dried out considerably; but it’s far from seasoned and will only be used this year if we run out of the well seasoned stuff.

On the left, behind all those poles and boards, is the old woodshed containing this year’s seasoned wood. The kids stacked this stuff in on Saturday, and the two sheds together are probably only just over half full. I still have five woodpiles outside that need to move in under shelter, and I need to finish securing and patching the roofing tin you see here. I’ve raised the roofs on both of them to a 10 in 12 pitch, and hopefully that will help them shed the snow better than the last two years. Last year I had to shovel snow off the woodshed every time there was 18” or more on top—six or seven times during the season. Yuck. And besides, a steeper pitch gives more space for wood underneath.