Henry Ford never cut wood with me.

It was Ford who said, “Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice,” meaning the woodcutter enjoys both the warmth of the burning firewood and the heat generated by the physical work of cutting it.

Now I don’t know exactly how Ford cut firewood in his time, but I know my own personal “warmings” are several times more than his.

The first warming begins when I pull the starter cord on my balky chainsaw to begin the process. My “Easy-Start” model never lives up to its name. Repeated pulls never fail to generate body heat, and the saw rarely kicks over in fewer than 20 attempts.

Then, with the saw puttering perfectly, I fell the tree. That’s the easy part. Now begins the log cutting. Again, only mildly thermic. After all, it is a power saw (not like the two-man crosscut Henry may have used).

Now comes the second warming. I take each 16-inch section and set it upright in the snow no easy task, especially with big oak and beech logs. By the time I’ve finished this job, my first layer of outer clothing has come off.

Taking up my maul, I begin to split the upright pieces. Depending on whether the tree is straight red oak or twisted swamp maple, this can either cause a faint flush on my brow or an all-out blast-furnace effect that has the steam rising from my now bare head.

At some point I stack all the slash and tops in a burn pile for disposal the following winter. Hauling the slash to the pile is a fairly energetic process, so I tally that as another warming. (I will not, however, count the near-baking that takes place when the pile is finally touched off, as that’s clearly a claim outside of Ford’s premise.)

As I cut my wood way out behind my house, I now begin the transportation process. I have a heavy black plastic sled that I can load with exactly 22 pieces of split wood. I pull each load anywhere from 50 yards (if I’m lucky) to nearly 200 yards across a stretch of wetland, and the slog is mostly all uphill. (I am at times reminded of Colonel Knox and his colonial militia sledging cannons from Ticonderoga to Boston.)

Needless to say, I am more than warm at the end of each trip. But for purposes of this account, I will only count it as one instance of warming.

Now begins the stacking. I stack each piece one by one in face rows for maximum drying. Bend over, pick up a piece, place it next to its tree mate, then repeat until warm.

Months pass as the wood grays and cracks in the sun until at last, sometime in late October, the process begins again. Since my woodpile is far from the front porch, where the winter’s supply is stacked a week’s worth at a time, I begin the transfer process. Whether by wheelbarrow or trusty black sled, the transfer warms me, 22 pieces at a time and largely uphill (again!). Then, I restack it.

My personal relationship with each piece of wood finally ends with its entry into my soapstone stove, where, yes, it finally warms me in full with its intended purpose.

For those of you keeping score at home, that amounts to being “warmed” eight times give or take a stray restacking or two due to receding frost heaves or my poor wood pile architecture.

My personal relationship with each stick of wood is nearly ended at this point, except for disposing of the ashes. (How does a ton of wood turn into a five-pound bucket of ash?)

I usually spread cold ashes on top of the snow, so they will sink into the early spring ground. After smudging the snow with a broadcast of ashes, I hustle back into the house to park my rear end a foot from the blazing stove to be, yes, warmed one more time.

By Greg Lowell, Coverts Cooperator

Artist: Maria Levandowski, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener