Wood Warms Three Times

There is an old saying which has it that wood warms you twice: the first time when you saw and chop it; the second when it's burnt. I count a third, the warm feeling you get from thinking about that free fuel and the value of the exercise. As regards that last point, I find the gym boring beyond words, hate jogging as a pointless (and in terms of joints damaging) torture, but can spend hours chopping wood in the fresh air. Not an all-over fitness regime, but it ups the heart rate and my arms are in fine fettle.

We had built up a huge pile of old branches dried under a tarp beneath the now sadly unused (and rotting) tree-house. Over January I have reduced that pile by half, filling bags now kept in the greenhouse (until it is needed for growing stuff) and the shed. The driest, and ash that you can use pretty much off the tree is included in that, has been burned. Carbon neutral as it would rot and give off gases otherwise, it is not a fossil fuel. I'm leaving the twiggier stuff so that any hedge-hogs hibernating at the bottom will not be disturbed, but come spring will sort that too and use the space for stacking the cut-to-size split logs and bags of kindling. As eco here means economy as well as ecology, I reckon the 11 bags of big stuff and five of kindling would have cost about £75 from the local dealer. A gym membership would have set me back about £25 for the month, so we are £100 ahead of the game.