Thrice warmed!

In an earlier post, I mentioned our goal to burn more wood this winter for heat and less propane.  To meet this goal, we needed to get our wood pile in the garage better stocked.  As dead trees in our own wood lot were now scarce, we had to look beyond the boundaries of our little farm.  A generous neighbor a mile down the road offered us access to their aging shelter belt.  I had cut here a few years ago and knew this location was full of dead or dying elms that make ideal firewood, so I took them up on the offer.  I tuned up my chainsaw and spent 4-5 mornings cutting firewood before I went to work in town.  Now I only needed help to get it hauled in.

Margaret, Eleanor, Lydia, Charlotte and Anne

I didn't have to go far to find excellent help!  Wow, these young ladies can haul firewood.

Our system went like this:  Charlotte and Lydia were the wheel barrow loaders.

Here they are in action:

With a load full of logs, I would scoot down the hillside (a big thank you to the Creator of gravity!) about fifty yards and strategically dump the logs for the pickup loaders, aka Margaret and Eleanor.

With the "help" of our neighbor's dog, Margaret would hand the wood over or through the fence to Eleanor who would carefully stack it in the bed of the pickup.  Anne served as our cheerleader and supervisor in the cab of the pickup.  After about ten trips with the wheelbarrow, we had a full load and were ready to head back to the house.

Here they are in action:

At the house, our goal was get the logs unloaded onto the wood pile in the garage.  Here's the crew ready to unload.

As our heap of firewood grew, it took more and more skill to get the logs correctly positioned on the pile so they wouldn't tumble back down to where Tim parks his car.  Here's a clip of the girls showing-off their log-tossing talents.  

After three days of hauling logs, our pile has now just about reached the rafters of the garage.  This is usually a sign that it is almost large enough to get us into February or March of next year.  We celebrated with a trip to Hokey Bro's Soda Fountain in Broken Bow for lunch on the final day of work.   I have a few more loads of logs cut and ready to haul when the need arrives.  Yep, I think I have an excellent crew.