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Firewood
Last autumn we chopped branches from the local hedges where they were getting out of control. Most of what we cut was hawthorn but there was also a bit of elder and ash. Through the winter we also chopped back privet branches. None of this was wasted. We fed the branches to the goats who ate the leaves and quite often the bark as well. The branches were then stacked up. The intention is to chop them up and use them for firewood.
I've made a start on chopping them but sadly, we have no wood fired heating system on which to use the sticks and logs. That was not through want of trying. Last year we signed a contract with a company called Solarlec to install a biomass boiler. The company was a complete waste of time. They took a very large amount of our money, signed a contract to install a boiler by the end of October, and gave us excuses galore for failing to install the boiler. By February, after lots of very angry messages and phone calls from me, they eventually agreed to return the £3300 we had paid the as a deposit. Even then it took another angry phone call from me to the director of the company to get our money back, 10 days after they had first agreed to return it. My recommendation is NEVER EVER deal with Solarlec. Anyway, more about the whole saga on another day.
The point is that due to Solarlec's miserable failure, we are still running a gas fired boiler and an electric immersion boiler. We are planning to replace them soon though clearly Solarlec will not be invited to tender for the work. In the meantime we will continue to build up a stock of firewood. I chop a few branches each day at the moment so that the job is manageable but with the hawthorn coming back into leaf, we will soon start to feed the goats branches again. We need to avoid the mistake of last year of simply letting the branches build up. Once the goats have had their fill, I need to chop the branches straight away.
Until 2009 I was working in London, UK, but I gave it up to pursue a life of self-sufficiency. My aim is to grow or forage for all my food, produce my own power and live a healthier and greener lifestyle. I left London to return to my home village of Sunniside, near Newcastle, in the North East of England. I have a couple of plots of land there as well as the garden of my house. Our village is a commuter area for Newcastle but we are surrounded by countryside which we use for picking wild foods. My mission in life is to show that it is possible to live well without destroying the planet in the process. I am also keen to ensure knowledge of historic recipes and cooking is kept alive. I regularly try out recipes from old cookbooks using the food we have grown. I make videos about our progress and about how to cook home-grown foods. These can be viewed on www.youtube.com/jonathanwallace.
www.self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com
Source: http://self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com/2015/04/firewood.html
