Story by Emmjay
The science of firewood. This is a piece of good quality stringybark. It’s about a half a metre long and weighs between 10 and 25 kg.
All the wood that Charlie cut and split by hand was carefully measured and met these specs. Why so particular ?
Stringybark is plentiful – apparently it’s the same species as Tassie Oak – which sounds a lot more furniture appropriate. Burns slowly, hot and with minimal ash. Good for home heating.
Weight – just a comfortable carry, large enough so that it won’t burn too quickly.
Length about 500mm. Fits snugly in the burner that heats hot water and the in-floor heating system. Also fits two rows in the trailer, weighing about a tonne – which the trailer can carry and the big quad bike/ small all purpose thing can pull up hills with three adults, one dog and a toddler- without spilling anything.
Stacks perfectly. Small load lasts about a week depending on how cold it gets in the New England Ranges.
And you thought it was just dead trees! But renewable dead trees if you have enough in reserve.
Our thanks to Emmlet 1, Charlie and Emmlet 1.1 for a wonderfully warm visit and the use of the “hopeless lumberjack’s splitter”.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Wood fires are shit, dirty and a lot of work. I have a slow combustion one in my rental property and I would never get one again.
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That’s right. They are designed to give silly old retirees like us something to do. Otherwise we would sit around making up stories to tell at the pub.
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You’re such a romantic, Hung 🙂
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Depend on one for heating when it’s minus 1, fuck the romance.
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Did that for 36 years. Got arthritis and so installed a big inverter electric system and now just push a little button up and down.
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I noted on my travels many many trees and dead ones. Love a wood fire. Maybe in the next house.
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I was surprised, Algy. There’s a disease or condition called die-back. Which I gather is of some concern, but country folk seem unmoved. And they leave some victims as habitat for furry critters birds and lizards. Yay
Give those trees a few years and
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We noticed plenty of fallen trees in the bushland near us a few years back, so installed a wood stove. We go on little jaunts into the bush armed with chainsaw ( me) and cordless recip saw (Mrs M). We also had a bloody, cursed tortured willow, which I cut down last year. The upshot is that we’ve managed to heat the house for free for the last couple of years.
Good story, Emmjay, nothing like playing with fire!
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Hey Big. There’s heaps (literally) of dead trees up the Emmlet 1s place, but these are ignored mostly if they don’t have enough mega joules to justify the hard work. And boy, are those nitty bits a bastard to cut and split 😊
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No one wants to muck around with those knotty, gnarly lumps, but we often see gums that have fallen, leaving nice straight, easy cuttin’ bits sticking up where they dry out and season nicely. Then we come along and slice off what we want. We are adjacent to the unkempt section of a council park, so jump the fence and harvest some decent, dry firewood, although technically illegal.
Anyhoo, gotta light a fire. Just tried a new, local craft brewery and now feeling mellow….
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Train running through Lisarow. Bless your cotton socks, Big 😊
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