Monday, November 11, 2013

Shedding the Woodshed

A day late and a dollar short on this one! I was going to post about how I built a wonderful new woodshed out of pallets in my backyard. But first, work sucked up a bunch of my weekend, and I didn't get to it on Saturday or Sunday. Then, this happened:

Welcome to winter!
So the area I was going to build my woodshed in was now buried under 7 inches of snow. Fortunately, I had a tarp over the wood, so I dragged everything out today to try to build it...only to discover I didn't really have the right tools. And I'm not sure the pallets are even what I want. So I took all my pallets outside, dumped them behind the shed, and will wait until next spring to figure it all out.

In good news, this didn't stop me from building a fire this weekend. I also learned that I really stink at chopping wood, namely because newsflash: it's hard. It's even harder when the wood was apparently pretty wet and then froze. And you have no upper body strength. Apparently all these years I've been using my arms and back like they are labeled "For Decorative Purposes Only". But I managed to get enough to build a roaring fire on Saturday:

That would be an Arctic Rhino Coffee Porter on the coffee table.


So there are a few lessons here: 1) I don't really know what I'm doing with building this woodshed. My new plan is to have Heidi and Dan come down from Fairbanks and help me. Or have Dan build it. But I haven't asked them yet, so it's a secret. Shhh. 2) I need to work out more. 3) This winter, I think it's going to be wood from Fred Meyers for the win!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice fire! Surprised that it burned and that it burned so well if it was wet. We always had trouble getting wet wood started and then we thought it didn't give as much heat as dry. You must be a Master Fire Builder. (is that a GS badge?)

The Artic Rhino Coffee Porter sounds like it's just up my alley.

We won't tell Heidi and Dan, but that sounds like a plan.
~M

Anonymous said...

Burning wood is a lot of work! Esp as mcuh as we burned in Falls Church.

-D

L said...

Mom, I think I just had enough kindling to get it started that first time. I ran out of good kindling and wasn't so successful the second.

Dad, I'm glad I'm not using it as a primary heat source. Since it's just for fun, I only have to do it when I feel like it. :)