You as a young hoarder......When did you find the passion

I wouldn't call it passion so much as forced child labor. Summer vacations from when I was 11 'till I was 18 and working full time were spent at my grandparents house helping my grandfather do fire wood. Every year he would get a load of logs dropped off and I progressed up the labor chain from just stay out of the way and don't get hurt moving rounds and splits and helping stacking, to running the chainsaw and doing the bull work while pop ran the lever for new hydraulic splitter. (he'd more than earned it at that point) I got to spend a lot of quality time with a great man, learned the value of "sweat equity" and learned how to work smarter and not harder, pop wasn't big on verbal lessons, but you could learn a lot just by watching him.

 

I grew up in a 3-bedroom house with six siblings on a third of an acre. It was oil heat and set to 60! There was no way my mother would give up Garden or flower bed space for firewood!
My parents were also campers and we spent a lot of time going to state campgrounds. Until Dad saved and bought his 30 Acres at camp. With five boys, most high energy, Camp was the place you always wanted to go. But to cook or to eat at camp you had to get firewood! So that we could leave stuff at the camp like the camper, canoe and bicycles. We built a 2 car garage.
Then after it's summer like this one where it rained everyday, and the kids of course would always sides of the canvas it leaked. Dad and I went down to the hardware store got some 4 by 8 pieces of plywood and some two by sixes and built bunk beds. Of course a concrete floor is damp, so a buddy gave us an old wood stove and we installed it.

Then I bought my home I had an brick chimney in an old woodstove in it. My boys are crazy outside kids. The stove could dry out their snow suits hats and mittens while they were getting their spare set wet and we saved on heat.
Found FHC while looking for a better wood stove and been improving it My technique ever since..

 

Just some wandering thoughts here! As I read over the posts in this thread there were a lot of common threads that kept cropping up. Hard early times and conditions were mentioned many times. Not in a "pity me" way but just casually like it was a part of life. "Yeah, times were tough but we just cured it with hard work. Things are better now!" Older folks passing on life's lessons either by teaching or example! Lots of Granpas and Dads and older neighbors helping younger folk become upstanding individuals! Posters expressing gratitude for lessons and tips on firewood gathering, processing and stacking. Friendships have blossomed on and off the site. Satisfaction in hard work and straight stacks was acknowledged. Perhaps the biggest commonality that I sense, and several expressed, is that awareness that heat is necessary for our very life and we all like it in it's most basic form: wood fires. Wood heat is hard work. It brings us satisfaction and a measure of self sufficiency! It fosters friendships and camaraderie. It binds us to the past generations and gives us life lessons. It betters our condition. It warms our bodies and our homes, it cooks our food and purifies our thoughts as we gaze into it. Fire is elemental and so is our passion. They go hand and hand!

 

Well said, metalcuttr!

 

metalcuttr .. My gramps lived on farm in NE Vermont.. Him and brothers used to cut split stack 35 cord year for farm, MA's cook stove and sugar season.. No chainsaws or splitters or insulation in farmhouse. He was tougher than me

 

You and me both my Friend!

 

I was 17, in best shape of my life, I was splitting wood.. wrong, gramps was 80s he could split a 16 inch round of sugar maple in 4 pieces, with 1 swing of maul!! I was dripping sweat in hour, just giving him rounds, and clearing splits. 1 cord split.. 1 hour by hand!!

I still can't do it!! I tried

 

X2 ^^

Very well put metalcuttr

When I think of what my G' parents and G G'parents went through, my problems seem trivial.

They'd have likely looked upon my grievances the way many of us do in the current generation of youngster's and go.


Things have gotten so much easier over the decades, but that can also inhibit personal growth and fortitude in the face of adversity.


The next generations will have their own unique set of trials and tribulations to overcome.

Let's hope we've prepared them well.

 

5 years old, my parents buy a big old house in '78. No money for oil, we made it through the winter because they can't shut off the gas heat in the middle of the winter, by law.
We had an old cook stove with a built in gas heater.
My dad installs a tempwood (great stove, would love to have one myself), and I'm the slave labor that drags all the wood into the house for the next 7 years .
Parents build a new house with oil heat, I actually miss bringing in the wood.

1985 to 2011, no wood heat, just a short fling with pellets.
Then in 2011 I'm called to be the pastor of a small church with no money, and a Fisher grandpa bear in the parsonage.
The first winter they bought oil because we didn't have wood ready to burn.
Over the last 6 years I've figured out chainsaws, scrounging , splitters, seasoning and wood heat.
In the last year I finally got a good start on the three year plan.
I like the exercise and I'm lucky to have a son to bring the wood in.
My wife has learned very well, she can also light and feed the stove just fine.

 

My dad had one of them, definitely garbage, but it beat cutting by hand

 

Definitely!

 

Child labor- the Gov outlawed that - ya well not on the farm!

 

Yep, you wanna eat? You wanna be warm?
Well, here's what we got to do.

 

Thats when kids were taught threw out there growin up....how to survive....make a living,be responsible for there actions,etc. Now there taught how to be basement bodies..not all...but too many..

 

I did not know what to expect by creating this thread, but find the life stories refreshing. I have not been a part of this site for near as long as the great people that started the site, but have enjoyed this place immensely. Most people do not understand or appreciate the Wood life, so this place has been great. I just hope I can hit one of the gtg events. Enjoy your day all and be safe.

 

Most certainly a little late on this one dont have a wood stove yet as my wife and i are waiting on our house to be built and our second son to be born in a month. We are moving up by her parents and her horses lord help me. I will be putting a wood stoves in our new house plenty of trees around on the property to cut. My first memories of wood burning were at our little cabin on the salt fork river in illinois it was mostly for camp fires but i always enjoyed makin firewood with my dad, brother and uncle....of course gpa was there to supervise!!!!

 

I was 50 when I started in firewood. Working 22 12hr days then getting 20 days off and The kids about to go off to college I was looking for a side gig. Most I found involved putting wear and tear on my cars. Till I stumbled across firewood.
With no access to woods. I rely on scrounges from yard trees. So much for wear and tear on the 16 yr old Yukon. I barely make a profit if you deduct all the toys I finance from it. But like I told one of my neighbors at camp..Some people have boats or motorcycles I have chainsaws and log splitters.

 

Ive been obsessed with trees and wood since i was a baby ive been told. My mother would change me and reference the wind blowing the trees outside the window she has told me. When i learned to walk i would waddle tree to tree in the yard identifying them. I made play doh trees and used a table knife making the chain saw sounds while "bucking" them into logs (true story) The sound of a chain saw or wood chipper and id be drawn to it like a magnet. (stil makes mt ears perk up like Yoda) Dad would cut on Sunday and i couldnt wait. Id have the little bucksaw to do the limbing. I used a little Homelite as a teen and my uncle got me my first Stihl at age 17 right after hurricane Gloria in 1985. I guess its got a lot worse since ive joined the group here!
Great thread Woodsnwoods

 

Growing up, my stepfather was an avid wood burner. He had an All Nighter in the finished basement and frequently used the open fireplace upstairs as well. Large wood piles just outside the back door were normal to me. As I got older my mother divorced him and bought her own Cape Cod house that had an old cast iron stove in the basement that looked something like this:




I wanted to use it badly but she had it lugged up the stairs and put by the road for free. It disappeared within 45 minutes.

My uncle that lived a few miles away heated almost exclusively with wood. Growing up with a more or less absentee father, he was kind of my surrogate old man. I spent a lot of time over there, as I did my grandfather's next door to him helping him bring in wood to the basement every fall. I'd also go out with my grandfather whenever he cut wood, and I'd pick up whatever pieces I could carry and load them into his pickup truck.

Fast forward to an adult still in apartment living, I started hoarding wood for the outdoor pit. After a bad Nor'Easter crippled the state in 2011 I went out and bought my first chainsaw and after the initial yard cleanup, I was hooked. Within weeks I had amassed 2 cords of wood where I was renting. A couple different rentals later and wherever I went I always had a fire pit and my stash. Eventually the time came to buy a house. The one I bought had a modern EPA stove in the back room and I knew that's where I wanted to be. From there my hoard grew more and more. By the time I found FHC, I became a flown blown wood junkie. I thought I knew a thing or two about wood heat when I got here, but was quickly humbled to find out much of what I "knew" was either misguided information I picked up second hand or flat out wrong. I'm still wrong sometimes, but at least I have safe burning habits now. The importance of that kind of thing can't be overstated when you have a family to look after. Oh, and another thing I found very enjoyable since joining here: Tree identification. I thoroughly enjoy walking through the woods and taking mental notes of whatever trees I see. I like reading the terrain and putting the story together of the ever-evolving forest. I found out that there's a certain spiritual value to being in the woods far away from all the BS of the world. So for me, it's more than just not buying as much heating oil. It's a way of life, a way of connecting with people, and a way to put myself in tune with the rhythm of the seasons and the natural world as a whole.

 

Folks always burned wood as a kid. Grandpa still puts up a nice amount of wood every year. Spent my time contributing out of necessity versus desire. Bought my first house in 2000 at 20. As a broke college kid that couldn't afford propane, hoarding became a requirement for my first winter. With a propane stove...I cooked on the wood stove or a Foreman Grille until I could afford propane. At that time all I had was an old axe. Would drive the two tracks and pick up any odd rounds I could find. Moved out of that place at 26 and haven't owned a house with wood heat since.

Dad started hoarding wood again 5-7 years ago. I started joining him on his morning cutting sessions more just to spend time with him. Kids would help stack after splitting. At the time I had an old McCulloch Timber Bear and a Poulan Wild Thing. Kinda wish I still had the McCulloch. It was built like a tank. Heavy. But I think it would have made a decent small chainsaw mill rig.

Bought my property outside of city limits in 2018. Started cleaning stuff up that first fall. New house is being built right now. Couldn't convince the Mrs. to go with an insert versus fireplace. Dad was dead set against either. It's a huge mess son, you've got a highly insulated new home with Natural Gas there's no sense, etc. And then I started finding little piles all over the property. Well son, if you're gonna burn wood you gotta get it ready.

Firewood bug really hit me last year at the age of 40. Can't explain it. Have a management job for a Fortune 100 company. There is no need for me to do firewood. Overheard my wife and grandmother talking about it last fall. Just runs in the family. Something oddly therapeutic about it. You can either support it and enjoy the wood, or not. But either way you're going to end up with stacks of wood everywhere. They don't know why. Only that they need to.

So far I've resisted picking up "free" firewood. Waiting for construction to be done on the new place before I start doing that. Already have a list of people wanting me to come clean up downed trees. Don't need the wood...but kinda crave it.