Fire wood

Warmth. This is a picture of future warmth. This is a pile of yet to be cut and split fire wood. The stack in the background is a hickory tree that feel in a storm mid Summer. The small upper branches we cut into excellent mid day logs. We have a small stove for the tiny house and as such we cut our firewood to short lengths. The foreground of the picture is littered with locus and black cherry logs. These logs were either too twisted to be made into planks or to thin in diameter to be milled. All of these trees were standing dead which has made them hard and dry, excellent to burn. 

Last Winter we urned a lot of poplar, as it was what we had from timbering dead trees. When I say a lot of poplar, I mean it takes a lot of poplar to be warm. The wood burns fast and does not put out a sizable amount of heat. This was news to me. I thought fire is hot wood burning is wood burning but it turns out variety matters. Hickory, locus, cherry, and oak are all good burning woods because they put out high levels of heat. Poplar not so much. The logs that I found most difficult to move due to weight and density. Those are the ones that I will be using for fire fuel from now on. High weight means either too wet to burn or heavy and full of burning potential.