The end of the wood pile

We’re just two days away from the end of February and I have about a week’s worth of wood left for the wood stove. So, my two cords of wood held me through half of October, November, December, January, February, and into the first week of March. That’s pretty good, making my heating costs roughly $125 per month. Even though our temperatures were much warmer than normal, colder temperatures probably wouldn’t have made that much difference in how much wood I burned. The one big difference I could have made was replacing the gasket around the stove’s door a couple of months earlier. That might have made the wood last through the third week of March. Next year, three cords of wood. It’s always better to have some left over than to run out.

There’s a fellow in the next town who sells haul-your-own wood at pretty reasonable prices. If he has any left, I’ll borrow a friend’s SUV to go fetch a load to get us through March and early April. I really, really hope he has some left because....

I received my January-February gas bill a couple of days ago and the price of gas went up again. No surprise there, but if I have to heat my house at those prices, I’ll end up paying, for one month, nearly what I spent on two cords of wood. Because I haven’t been shoveling out bushels of money to the utility, I’ve been able to tuck a nice little chunk of cash away in savings the past few months and I like it. One of the direct benefits is that I can pay my car loan off in March. Whoo!

Next month I get to start haggling over prices for three cords of green wood, about half the price of seasoned wood. If I can get a delivery in April or May, I should be good to go by October or November. And, of course, the lad will still be around to help me stack it. Dividend!!

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The lad is home. He arrived here a couple of hours ago and is already at his desk doing homework, which, he reported, is what he spent most of his time doing in PR, too. He surely doesn’t look as if he saw much sunshine while he was away, although the sunny green warmth was way welcome—even if it was on the other side of the window. Arriving home in a snow storm, with bone-chilling winds, was a jolt back into reality. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize he would be home so early this morning and I hadn’t started the stove up yet. It was cold in here. Once I did get a fire going he practically grafted himself to it. A 70 degree difference in less than a day is a bit of a shock to the system.