We’ve mobilized to harvest firewood. Not only do we need to begin stockpiling fuel for the coming winter, we need to be ready to supplement our current supply, which has been radically reduced by the recent winter’s long cold spells.
A friend who had worked on road construction once explained the process to me. He said that a successive series of jobs needed to be performed in close conjunction, so that finished roadway appeared in a continuing flow. He described it as a dance, with each part of the process choreographed, in order to keep everything moving forward. This explains why there are so many men propped on shovels, apparently doing nothing, on road construction sites.
I see our firewood harvest as a very similar process. We can’t just go out and cut wood. We need to prioritize and coordinate our needs to make sure that every part of the process moves forward equally. It requires triage, or, if you will, “treeage.”
This green windfall gets two cuts, one to sever the rootwad, the other to open the crown (Photo: Mark Zeiger).