Life of the party

“I can’t believe you went outside to look at Steve’s wood piles,” my wife says as we hurry to her van after a recent holiday party where temperatures outside were in the teens. The party inside was warmed by good friends, holiday spirit and a wood stove on the main level of the house. I had been talking to my friend Steve about his eood stove for more than a year but this was the first time I had seen it. It was functional and decorative. I asked him about his wood supply. He said he had cut some of the wood and purchased the rest.
“Where do you have it stacked?,” I asked.
He went over the layout.
“Can I take a look?”
So on this bitterly cold December night he showed me his three wood piles and explained his system for moving wood into the house.

My father purchased a wood stove sometime in the early 70s, spurred on by the seemingly high oil prices that resulted from the first Arab oil boycotts. My brother and I spent the next 15 years or so helping Dad cut, haul, split and stack wood. At times we had up to four or five wood piles in our backyard. It was all part of Dad’s system for letting wood dry properly before it was burned. The trick was to also have a healthy smaller pile close enough to the house so that you could easily transfer wood inside during cold winter weather. Since it was our job to get wood in the house, the woodpile system was important.

Despite my lingering curiosity about stoves and wood piles, I do not have a wood stove. The gas stove that my in-laws gave us a couple of years ago keeps the house just as warm and requires less work. My house has a fireplace, but I’ve never burned any wood in it. The condominium I owned before I bought the house, also had a fireplace. When I moved in there was a shabby woodpile on the deck. The first thing I did was get rid of it.

“Did you have fun looking at the wood piles?,” a friend at the party asked with a smirk. My wife told me later that the partygoers had spied us outside and had a good laugh.
“I did,” I told her. “You know my Dad had a wood stove. My brother and I spent most of our childhood cutting wood. I remember the time.....”

Let me know what you think.