The Wood Stove

We live on 5 acres close to Winnipeg in Canada. The winters are brutal here! One of my favorite parts about the winter is our wood stove that warms our house. Every winter we go through approximately a cord and a half to two cords of wood to heat the house from late fall to spring time. It’s a lot cheaper than heating the house with a gas or electric furnace and the constant heat is so very cosy. I often find myself at night when I am putting the last logs on before I head to bed, just mesmerized by the fire and warmth, the lights will be all turned off and I’ll just sit there for an extra 10 minutes or so basking in the glow.

It’s a lot of work however, from stacking to chopping to carrying it inside. That’s okay though, everything on our little farm is a lot of work and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before we moved here I had never so much as lifted an axe. I surprised myself with how capable I am at chopping wood. Dad works a lot of hours in the city and getting the fire started everyday falls on my shoulders. We do have electric heat that will keep the house warm enough that pipes don’t freeze but on cold winter days you want to get that fire going in the morning, it takes a few hours for the house to heat up but once it does, wow!

We also get a lot of power outages here and the wood stove provides warmth, light and a way to still cook or make tea.  It’s not even winter yet and I’ve already had to cook dinner once on it!

Anyhow, I just wanted to share this post as we got our wood delivered on Friday and it was a full team effort to get it all stacked and tarped and a supply of kindling chopped. We were expecting rain the next day, and we got the job done. Now we can sit back and relax and know our family will be warm this winter.

We have checked a lot of our list of things to do before winter arrives, we have a good supply of hay for the goats stacked away in the barn, goats and chickens have clean and well insulated houses, gutters are almost completely fixed and wood is now done too. Now just to get the kiddos all prepared too.  Then it’s time to settle in for the cold months ahead!