Firewood forges chore standoff

Andrew Gale may not live in the coldest house in Warwick, but it's pretty close

WARM HOME: Isaac Gale standing by the fire (without having helped gather the wood to burn). Picture: Contributed

I KNOW quite a few people have had the fire on for a few weeks now already.

As soon as the temperature drops below the teens, off they go.

Fire's on, house is warm and it will keep going probably until September or so. Ours doesn't go on for a while yet. It's a long story.

We live in a big old house that's more than 100 years old and has as many drafts as it has character. Tons.

The house has been a renovation project for some time and I can't see it being finished for a while.

It's made of the finest pine and hardwood and apart from the wool batts that I recently installed, now residing 12 feet above our heads in the ceiling, the house is completely devoid of insulation.

The floors are simple wood, the lounge leather, and other "soft” furnishing are far from soft.

I spent a year or so as a carpet and upholstery cleaner and I've never been a fan of carpet or cloth since.

Quite often, on a frosty morning day, come 9am or so when the sun is out, it's actually warmer outside than in.

In short I'd say it's probably not the coldest house in Warwick, but it might make the grand final.

To combat the winter chill we have three air-conditioners and two fireplaces, and we always have a large pile of freshly split ironbark and plenty of kindling stacked in the backyard.

It's not that high at the moment - there are a few logs left over from last winter, along with some blow-down stuff and some renovation offcuts, maybe enough to last a fortnight if needed.

I suppose I'll find a day in the next week or so to cut some more.

Plenty of people look at wood cutting and firewood preparation as an overly onerous chore.

Others, sadly for them, due to age, have their best days of lumberjacking behind them.

However, strange as it may seem, turning logs into heat for the family is something I always take on with great pleasure and enthusiasm. I think it satisfies the hunter-gatherer instinct in me.

Sometimes, I become all nostalgic as I'm stuffing a log into the fireplace.

I don't go all teary or anything, but my chest swells with a sense of accomplishment.

Something in that piece of wood, a knot, a shape or cut, sparks a flash of recognition and all of a sudden I'm transported back to the paddock where the wood was cut.

I can remember the smells and sounds and the sense of accomplishment as the ute tray or trailer was filled to the brim with chunks of aged red and grey eucaplyptus crebra (narrow-leaf ironbark).

I can then sit back with a nice cuppa or a coldie and listen to the crack and pop of the log burning, the "sequestered” carbon being liberated and transformed into heat and a warm glow that fills the home and heart.

We have the wood and we have the fireplaces. We even have the new insulation in the ceiling. So why is the house still cold?

Let's just say there are a few issues with my wood distribution and transport system. Not from paddock to wood pile. From wood pile to house.

You would think with four healthy boys at home this would be the easy part of the whole exercise, but not here.

Someone told me once "one boy - good worker, two boys - no worker” and we have two times two workers so what chance do we have?

As the days get shorter and the nights longer the stand-off continues. Eventually though, necessity (in our case, the threat of hypothermia) is the mother of invention and the wood starts to come inside and into the fireplace.

Now if I can only get them to bring in more than one piece a day.