I've finally started cutting my firewood for the winter now that it is November. Most people probably already have more than they can burn stacked neatly outside their homes.

For me, this has been the year of just barely getting things done in time.

The potatoes were only dug about two weeks ago, but thankfully, they turned out fine. The beets just came out of the ground and most were still good. I had some volunteer tomato plants in the onion row that I didn't pay much attention to, but I found that they had produced a healthy crop of tomatoes while I was checking through the onion patch. Thanks to the volunteer plants, I still have big green tomatoes in the kitchen window. Luckily, the grass they were lying in protected them from the frost. Now there's a handy excuse for not weeding the garden late in the season.

I finally took the air conditioner out of the living room and started my first fire of the year one evening last week. I figure I will be burning lots of wood this year, especially after I called to check on the prices for kerosene, which is now hitting a little over $2.60 per gallon at some local outlets. If a family burned about three gallons a day, that would cost somewhere around $236.50 per month just to heat a regular-sized house. Just thinking about it is enough to make me want to kill a few trees.

For the past two years, I was trying to keep up with my demand for firewood. In fact, two years ago I had to go back out and cut in the middle of February to have enough. This year, I had seasoned wood ready to go and saved a good deal of my time out looking for deadwood to have something to burn as my green wood cures. In a rare occurrence of pre-planning had a good bit of wood cut and stacked this spring and even a little left over from last winter, enough to probably get through a few months of winter. But I knew I would need at least three or four more loads on my big truck to ensure that my supply wouldn't run out and that I would have enough extra green wood to cure out and start with next year.

I also have about half a tank of kerosene left behind the house to operate my little oil heater, so I'm hoping it lasts long enough to get me through the year. I don't see me spending $260-some dollars for 100 gallons of liquid gold anytime soon.

The main time I use my oil heater is when I am going to be gone for an extended period of time and won't be home to put wood in the stove. The other time that I use it is in the spring and fall when the temperatures aren't really cold enough for a fire, but are still too cold to not have any heat in the house.

In the late fall, winter and early spring, I hardly let my fire go out at all. The only time I let it die down is to shovel out the ashes about once a month or clean out my flu pipe, which I do at the start of the season and about halfway through, just to be safe.

I've come across a few places to cut hardwoods that aren't too hard to access in my truck. I have already captured a few loads and hope to only need two or three more. I've also stacked up a good number of large logs to split and stack later. I'm hoping to borrow a mechanical wood splitter to help out with the work, but a little splitting with a maul sure will provide a handy workout in the wintertime. I've also worked a few evenings with a friend in helping him get up some wood.

I usually try to stack up all the large pieces of wood that need to be broken down and then split it and stack it all at once. Last year a friend brought his gas-powered splitter and he and I and left it all in a couple of humps covered by a tarp, where it stayed for most of the winter.

The first year, I split quite a bit of my wood with a maul and wedges. I don't care much for trying to split really knotty wood with a maul. If the maul bounces off after a few strokes, I know that I don't want to mess with it much longer. With woods like oak and maple, the head usually just glides through and makes clean slices. That's the kind of splitting I don't mind doing.

Thankfully, even a gnarly old tree has limbs that are the right size for the stove, so I'm always happy to get those neatly stacked between the trees and work on the rest later. That's how I judge my supply of wood, by how many gaps are filled in between the trees. I usually try to fill all the gaps with firewood and then stack both sides of the porch with wood. I like having a dry supply of wood on the porch, close enough to the door that I can just reach out or step out quickly and grab whatever I need.

So far I still haven't hauled the air conditioners and other summer items into storage, so I can't really stack wood on the porch yet. I do have a load of wood blocks and a load of good green wood stacked in between the trees by the driveway, about 30 feet from the door.

I've been told that a house with wood on the front porch isn't attractive, but as I have said before, when I'm the one fetching the wood, the closer it gets the better it looks. Perhaps its my lazy side coming out, or perhaps it's just a matter of practicality, but I don't see any point going over the hills and through the woods to fetch a stick of stove wood.

I looked at the thermometer last week as I dashed out of the house in the early morning hours to get a few sticks of wood and noticed that it was 21 degrees. Not that I needed to look at the thermometer to realize it was cold outside, mind you. The breeze blowing and the plumes of frosty breath were dead giveaways.

At any rate, that's pretty cold to be darting across the driveway in the dark in pajamas. Besides, the neighbors likely don't appreciate the intrinsic beauty of my moonlit pajama party in the driveway. In looking at the forecast, it looks like I may not need to be dashing out for wood in the cold for at least a few days.

If the forecasters are right, we're in for some beautiful sunny fall weather with temperatures in the 60s. I'm sure we can all appreciate a little more of that, especially those who may have been subjected to my pajama wood dash.

Who knows what kind of mischief I can get myself into with several potentially sunny days to be outside? There's plenty of firewood to be cut, that's for sure. But I also still haven't started that painting job I agreed to take on back in September, mainly due to weather reasons. Maybe this will be the week.

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