I’m just going to throw this out there: Isn’t the warmth and glow of a fire, open or contained, a wondrous thing?
I’ve been lucky/foolish/industrious enough over spans of my long life to have enjoyed this indoors and out, and cooking and heating this way simply cannot, in many ways, be duplicated. The taste and smell memories are just two of these.
This may sound selfish, but I’m not sure I want to live without a little woodsmoke.
You?
I save all of the wood (larger than my thumb) when I trim my Mesquite tree. I either cook with it on my outdoor rocket stove or burn it in my fireplace.
It doesn’t get all that cold here, but it is very nice to have a fire from time to time (when it does).
We had 2 bush cords of wood delivered today. Half of it already stacked, the other half finished tomorrow. There’s a small fireplace insert in the family room that keeps a good part of the house cozy no matter how cold it is outdoors. I love turning off all the lights and sitting in the flickering flame light. Magical. One of my favourite memories of childhood is the truly huge bonfires we used to have. Nothing is as tasty as fire toasting bacon on a stick and eating it with a potato pulled from the coals. Country life is the good life.
There’s plenty in Ventura County, California right now! 
Nice. I’d feel better going into winter if had an extra cord or two ready.
You rick it bark up, or bark down? Or is it already seasoned?
I love it, the eyes, don’t.
Weiners wrapped in Bisquck dough, maybe a slice of cheese in there after a football game.
It’s already seasoned and being stacked as a holz hausen with bark on the top. It’s a very stable way to stack wood and allows for airflow to let it dry out.
I cannot recall when I last came across a real fire of any sort. Certainly many years. With the local council’s recycling schemes including garden waste, folk no longer bother to burn prunings and the like. That’s a good thing, IMO - going back years, it was almost a guarantee that if you put laundry out on the line to dry, a neighbour would start a very smoky fire.
We have a pellet stove that has been a huge help to offset straight electric heat from the heat pump in the cooler months. The condo has cathedral ceilings, so we have fans to help keep the heat generated where it is actually useful. The fire generated by the stove is also a pleasant benefit for ambiance.
One of the best purchases we made during the pandemic was a solo stove — we wanted to extend the time we could spend with our friends outside, and were able to do so well into winter (which, of course, has been milder each year since).
I can get lost in the flames and embers for hours, no conversation or music needed. Must be some primordial thing with us humans.
Thanks for the link.
A few years back, I was gifted an informative book on firewood entitled “Norwegian Wood”. I was amused to read of annual wood-stacking competitions, and how the winners were treated as rockstars in Norway.
I’d seen these circular piles before (usually encircling a live tree). The idea of filling the center with oddball pieces is appealing.
Can you explain how this stacking method is “self sustaining”?
The circular stack has each piece of wood holding up its neighbour, so as it dries and shrinks those shifted areas won’t unbalance and fall in the way a straight stack would. If part of a holz hausen stack would fall, it would be toward the inside, as the log ends are sloped toward the centre. I’ve had straight stack partially fall over at the end of the season even though it was contained on both side ends.
That all makes sense. I read “self-sustaining” to mean that you don’t need to restack. I guess what’s really meant is “self-supporting”.
I support my stacks by driving a couple steel T-posts at each end and sliding pallets over them as bookends and base. Just fill in between.
And making pillars of crossed wood layers every so often gives pretty good support.
So do you completely draw down one circle each season/year and then rebuild from scratch? And do you have and use the linked fabric covers?
I clearly misunderstood the purpose / point of this thread 
We go through our firewood every year, so the builds are new. Our base is one that we had from previous landscaping: pea gravel. We just raked it flat and built on that. Since we have plenty of tarps, those get used. Nothing special, although those do look nice.
My property is heavily wooded with alder, fir, myrtle wood and tan oak so we had wood heat until about 15 years ago. My throat decided it didn’t like wood heat so now my stove and hearth are home to house plants. I miss it.
Its going to be 88F here today. Im fairly certain I am smouldering.
I was a Boy Scout for many years, and spent a lot of time gazing into a fire. It’s truly mesmerizing, watching the flames flicker and dance, sparks floating upward into the night sky, until the pile collapses and eventually burns itself down to coals that have their own reddish-orange dance, until it goes dark and all that’s left is crackling embers and wisps of smoke. Honestly, I can see how some people can become set a fire just to watch a fire burn, with no respect or forethought about their actions. Fire can be dangerously enticing.
Yep. There’s a guy at a dairy farm we drive by who keeps an outdoor fire pit alight A LOT. We can see that he must have an unlimited free source of planer ends. It’s kinda sad–he leans on his truck’s bed rails and just watches and feeds. Never anyone else around.
