The Woodcutter’s Song

Wood heat is a wonderful thing in the wintertime, so wonderful that folks like us are more than happy to do all the work associated with it. If you are reading this and wondering what benefits could possibly make cutting, hauling, splitting, stacking, weekly woodbox replenishing and daily fire building worth all the effort, I would say that it’s a lot like the feeling you get from growing your own food or making something from scratch. Plus you get the bright, cheery flame on dark winter evenings and that warmth that soaks into your bones. I can’t even imagine life without a woodstove. I would probably end up with too much time on my hands in the winter and start to cause trouble.

Since we had only been in our place since April, we filled our woodshed with the last half cord of the firewood I had cut myself the year before (which was quite an epic undertaking as a single lady that you can read about here: I Wood and I Could: The Story of Heating a Home) plus another cord and 3/4 from a local firewood cutter. By November we realized this was going very quickly, and just as we were contemplating what to do about it, my trusty old Subaru decided to kick the bucket, pushing us to finally get ourselves one of the most useful things a modern day homesteader can have, a truck.

Now, up until this point I had been hauling strawbales and feedbags in the back of my Subaru, along with bricks, wood, rocks, and sometimes chickens. Since the Subaru was clearly not always the right tool for the job, I borrowed my friend’s old Forest Service truck from time to time. After our move 45 minutes out of town, however, that was no longer much of a viable option. We found our truck just in the nick of time, because we heard right after that the Forest Service had opened up wood cutting in an area we had been mushroom hunting and seen plentiful slash piles of seasoned wood.

We borrowed a friend’s Husqvarna Rancher chainsaw and headed out on some cold December days to begin restocking our woodshed one truckload at a time. We made several trips, hauling home our cut rounds of fir, cedar and cottonwood. On one trip out we couldn’t get the chainsaw to start up, but still managed to collect enough rounds to fill our truck that other woodcutters hadn’t been able to fit in their trucks and left behind.

Every trip we made, I kept my eyes peeled for some nice hardwood and finally on
our last trip out, I made the exciting discovery of a downed maple
tree that all the other wood cutters had somehow missed. We cut up the
entire thing from top to bottom and brought it home. All these woodcutting trips reminded me of an old traditional English
folksong called “The Woodcutter’s Song.” It’s quite educational and useful for whistling out in the woods, and makes me wonder why they don’t make songs like they used to.

The Woodcutter’s Song

(Traditional)

Oak logs will warm you well
 That are old and dry
 Logs of pine will sweetly smell
 But the sparks will fly
 Birch logs will burn too fast
 And chestnut scarce at all, sir
 Hawthorne logs are good to last
 That are cut well in the fall, sir

 Surely you will find
 No compare in the hardwood logs
 Cut in the winter time

 Holly logs will burn like wax
 You could burn them green
 Elm logs burn like smolderin flax
 With no flame to be seen
 Beech logs for winter time
 Yew logs as well, sir
 Green elder logs it is a crime
 For any man to sell, sir

 Surely you will find
 No compare in the hardwood logs
 Cut in the winter time

 Pear logs and apple logs
 They will scent your room
 And cherry logs across the dogs
 Smell like flowers a bloom
 But ash logs smooth and gray
 Buy them green or old, sir
 And buy up all that come your way
 For they're worth their weight in gold sir.

Here’s to hardwoods, a full woodshed, and knowing we’ll be warm this winter.