Cord Wood

A slightly earlier, tongue-twistier version of last night’s MPR commentary:

Probably many Minnesotans have been happy that, so far, it’s been a pretty mild winter. My family is on one of those stabilized payment plans where we pay the same amount for heat each month of the year, even in the summer months–not because I’m a speculator in energy stocks, but because I’m lazy: I don’t like to deal with sudden, surprising utility bills. Out of sight, out of mind.

Last fall, at about the time that oil and natural gas prices were spiking, I called up my friends at a farm in Western Wisconsin. I’d heard there was a run on firewood because of the panic over energy costs. Carter the farmer confirmed that he’d increased his prices by ten dollars per face cord. The price was going up not so much because of demand, but because of the cost of gas, since he had to drive into the city to deliver most of his wood. Each sale meant roughly a sixty-mile round-trip drive to town.

At this point I asked a question I ask everytime I buy firewood. What’s a face cord? And how does it compare to a regular cord of wood? This time, Carter explained it in terms that I feel confident are going to stick with me for a year or more. It’s like this: A normal cord of wood is four feet wide, four feet high, and eight feet long. A face cord is a third of a cord–a natural division that happens to a cord of wood when it’s cut up to fit into your typical stove or fireplace. Carter told me that most folks who actually depend on wood for heat will order at least a full cord, whereas folks who just enjoy a nice fire for aesthetic reasons–folks like me– will normally order a face cord.

I paid Carter $125 for a face cord of wood, mostly oak and birch, well dried and nicely split. When Carter backed into my driveway and up to my garage, I’d cleared all the kid’s bikes out of the way. I asked if he wanted help stacking the wood, and he said, “As you please.” He gave me to understand that we might enjoy each other’s company in the process, or we might not. It was all the same to him. I helped. I recall an old needlepoint on my grandmother’s wall that said something like, “When you split your own wood, you warm yourself twice.” Well, I wasn’t doing the splitting, but I’m a city slicker, so stacking counts.

I build fires just about every night. And the funny thing is, it actually makes my house cooler. The former owner had done such a great job insulating the house, sealing it up tight, that the fireplace has a draw something like an industrial wind tunnel. I’ve fallen asleep on the floor with the dog, not three feet from the blazing grate, only to wake up shivering as all the heat in the room is hoovered up the chimney.

And the other downside is that I have to go outside to smell that rich, wonderful, complex, and evocative smell. The aroma of birch and oak burning is, to me, comparable to the taste of a fine wine, or an expensive cheese–and I feel vaguely cheated to have to go outside to smell it. But then, of course, I’m rewarded by a view of the stars and the haloed moon in the cold, crisp night air.

Recently, though, I have developed a trick. After the fire is cracking nicely, I close the flue for just a few seconds. Just long enough to fumigate the liginv room with the thick, rich, aromatic smoke, but not long enough to endanger the wife, the kids, or the other smaller mammals. Sure, the fire alarms scream into life. But I breathe deep, smile, and lay my head back on the dog’s belly, and don’t give a second thought to the heating bill.