Issue #16 The Miscellaneous Adventures Digest
Firewood pondering and new subscription options
Hello all! First, some housekeeping - subscribers to the digest may have noticed in last week’s issue a button reading “Pledge your support”. This was automatically plonked in there by Substack in place of a “Subscribe” button without us knowing. Sorry about that. In case you didn’t know, Pledges are a new feature created by Substack to allow subscribers to pledge their support should authors decide to introduce paid subscriptions in the future. We have no plans to make this newsletter something people have to pay for, but we have been trying to think of ways to allow people to support us if they want to because it’s something we’re asked about and well, we need all the help we can get.
Although we offered the option to pledge support by accident, we were happily surprised to find several folks did so anyway for which we’re deeply thankful. This has prompted us to try making paid subscriptions a thing. This newsletter will remain free to read for all subscribers, but if you enjoy our weekly digests and want to help it grow into something more, then please consider becoming a paid subscriber and helping us on our journey. We will also send random and occasional mystery treats to paid subscribers by way of thanks. Whether you choose to upgrade or not, we’re always super grateful to the many friends, followers and friendly folks that have supported us one way or another. Thank you!
We spent a few days last week and at the weekend sorting out our firewood for next winter. We have a very different relationship with firewood now we no longer live in the woods, but we do still depend on it as our main source of heating here in our (very cold!) stone walled farmhouse.
The whole time we lived in the woods, harvesting firewood was integral to our way of life; it formed a big part of our education in trees, wood and woodlands and in part dictated how we managed the land. It also taught us something about self-reliance and of not taking for granted where heating comes from; when you cut your own wood, haul it, split it, stack it and finally bring it inside to burn, it sure makes you appreciate the warmth of the stove on a winter’s eve. Many times we would opt for putting on an extra layer instead of lighting the stove for we knew that our supply was finite. The woodpile was a good teacher in many other ways. Often we witnessed close encounters with nature as we quietly split and stacked on the edge of the woods; grass snakes and common lizards lurking in the wood stacks on summer’s days; voles scurrying to and fro; roe deer barking alarm calls in the woods and of course robins checking in to see if our activity had unearthed anything edible. It taught us the differing properties of tree species, unlocked secrets of working with tools efficiently and countless other tiny things which seemingly insignificant singularly, combined to shape who we are today.
We didn’t just cut wood for ourselves, we also cut wood for the landowner and so firewood formed part of our currency. The year we started managing the woods and grounds, I had no chainsaw and so harvested all that winter’s firewood by hand with a 4ft crosscut saw and an axe. It was slow and painful, but deeply rewarding. Using chainsaws the following winter felt like cheating and left little time for contemplation or connection to the tree, yet was vastly more efficient and helped shift the balance in my favour as far as wood as currency goes.
Now, without a readily available source of wood on our doorstep I’m questioning the efficiency of harvesting my own wood. In my line of work, opportunities for free wood come up frequently, although just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, in reality there’s also no such thing as free wood. With fuel, labour and time taken into account I think it would work out considerably cheaper to buy it seasoned and delivered from our local firewood supplier - but where’s the fun in that? I take heart too that my wood is a by-product of conservation work and thus ethically sound. I’m not sure I could vouch for the ethics of the local wood man; I suspect he is driven by the bottom line rather than by conservation objectives. I’m still connected to the wood and take pleasure from the processes involved, or at least that’s what I tell myself.
Now, there’s also debate as to whether we should be burning wood in our homes at all.
Due to our living situation and my working life, I think we’ll be burning wood for a while yet, but it poses many tough questions about what we want our lives to look like. Wherever we end up, it’s been quite a journey since cutting those first trees with a crosscut saw and I’ll always be thankful for the valuable teachings of wood and of many cosy evenings sat by the ticking wood stove.
I’m reminded of this video we made back in lockdown of the three of us sorting out our firewood in the woods.
Well, that’s all for now. We hope you had some snowy weather; it snowed overnight here, so we’re taking the day off to head to the hills…
Until next week, warm wishes,
Andrew, Emma and Benji
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I was also quite reticent about turning on paid subs but was amazed by the response in the end. Good move!