What Does Shoulder Season Mean to You?

It's coming, shoulder season is coming. To us it means burning lesser woods,letting the fire cruise on low or go cold until its time to cook. Less time spent hauling wood, which turns into time preparing g for the garden.

What does shoulder season mean to you?

 

Too warm to have a fire and too cold not to have a fire. Hard to balance it for me.

I will usually just do an overnight load unless it is really cloudy and windy. We get enough solar gain when it is 40+ degrees outside that I can keep the house at 68-70 without a daytime fire.

I think I have to burn less wood because I don't see how I could possibly burn more after Jan and first half of Feb.

 

Looking out for wood to replenish the stacks

 

Sounds like your house is a lot tighter than ours.

 

I don't know how tight it is, just seems to have a lot of thermal inertia. Takes forever to warm up and cool down.

 

Shoulder season is when I don't burn 24/7 anymore. No more stacked cord wood, I go straight to my punks, uglies and ends again. It means morning fires and evening fires only unless a short cold snap comes in. It's a welcome time of transition, which also means working with next years cord wood and starting the 2017/18 supply. I'm looking forward to it this year.

 

Shoulder season a bit less ice and snow( well maybe, sometimes we get megga slamed) definitely a shade warmer( won't see the sub zero #) +1 on the 17-18 start and some split sorting as long as Mother nature decided to huff and puff just a bit much and a bit too often and I'm pretty sure once the thaw starts I am going to lose a 30 ft long double row stack. Not all of it but a good portion- tends to act like dominoes. New neighbors got tree down and had asked last fall about getting some others down and out so their is that coming up as well as some friends with problem trees. Looks like spring is going to very busy and still trying to get a spot cleared for a 4 cord log load up at the shop. Got about a cord +1/2 yet of this years heat to bring in and dry externally ( snow and ice) before I can get the log load in. But I have to move the cord I have inside the shop to the house first. Weekend project.

 

In the Fall, it means it's gonna get darker every day & snow soon
In the Spring, it means more daylight, & the snow is gonna melt soon

 

For me & my undersized stove, it's when I only have to load 1 or 2 times a day. It's like I've got a Blaze King!!

 

We only use maple/ash/cherry all year anyway.....so I just burn smaller splits/smaller branches I cut up with my lil Echo top handle last year . I always use to think cutting the small stuff was a waste of time...but boy it comes in handy for smaller burns...or starting the stove !! Makes me feel good to use as much of the tree as I possibly can . Plus...my girlfriend and I have 5 kids between us......and they think its fun to play "pick-up sticks!"

 

Time to throw in all the gnarly, twisted, ugly stuff that doesn't make its way into the pretty wood stack pictures.

 

This year, it will be time when the snow is off the roof enough to go brush the flue. And raid the uglies bin again.

 

newspaper, kindling, boxelder, catalpa, uglies, repeat as needed

and this year, MUD

 

24 hour burn times.

 

For me it means burn one or two short fires a day and charge up the 400 gallon storage tank (battery). Add that to the 60 gallons in the boiler and you have yourself some heat that will last you a while in the shoulder season. Shoulder season is nice time.

 

Time to call in a wood delivery for 2015 - 2016. Primo wood can be saved for next season.

 

Stove the stove full. Every other day

 

Catalpa makes a much better tree than firewood.

 

I just watched a movie called MUD. Pretty good one.

 

Sometimes, 36 to 48 hours burn times.