Woodpile

Living on the outskirts of a medium sized village here in Brittany we are surrounded by woods and forests and it seems every other person has their own enormous woodpile.

You would think that with all the wood around that it would be cheap to buy? Not so, logs are sold by the corde ( approximately 3 cubic metres ) which can range from anything around 130 to 200 euros depending on the type and how old it is. Ideally wood for burning should be a minimum of 2 years old to allow it to dry out and season. In fact after this amount of time it is probably half of it's original weight and will give out 2-3 times the heat.
Some of my neighboughs have piles of logs that would appear to outlast anyone's lifetime and yet they are still felling and chopping.

I have to admit to slowly falling into the same category, there is something very satisfying in building up a log-pile for future winters and on a rare afternoon as of today when the sun came out, It gives a real feel good factor.

I'm coming to realise that the art in this is to do it on a regular basis, the logs I am cutting and chopping at the moment which are about 18 months old at the moment will be stacked away ready for next winter.

There really is nothing like a good wood-burner roaring away on a winter's evening!