day 11: "i am thankful for.....FIREWOOD!"

....especially if it's 'free'!

while my family and i lived on 34 acres in ny, we chopped down all the 'free' firewood we could muster.  we could never run out of hardwood such as sugar maple, walnut, and alder.  when we moved to our 10 acres here in oh, our trees consist of cottonwood, willow, and fruit....not at all useful for burning.  so, we have had to start being creative about where to find our firewood.

last year we contacted a guy (owns a tree service business) on craigslist advertising he had firewood for sale for $50 a cord.  well, that is a great price...compared to most selling their wood for over $100 a cord (outrageous!).  we jumped at the ad....drove 30 min to this guys house...and my hubby chopped up about 4 cords worth of hardwood...so a total of $200.  not bad!  but, we still have a hard time swallowing the fact that we have to pay for wood....(we got very spoiled in ny).

this year, the same tree service guy called my hubby, asking him if he would like some 'free' wood. he had cut up some wood for this elderly couple, but they did not want to pay to have him remove it.  of course we jumped at this!   we have been driving back and forth, 1 hour drive time, to load up our trailer full of all this wood!

here i am with all our FREE wood!  not too shabby huh?

now, take a guess as to how many cords this is (cord = 4'x4'x8' stacked)!  i will let you know how much money we saved (once we split/stack to measure a cord).   i have NO idea.  my husband guesses 5-6 cords.  what is your guess??



....so, what are you especially thankful for today?!:)