Fortifications against the cold

Some wood arrived, for us to stack:

Dumped here by awesome wood guy.
"Here" is just below main driveway.

A word of explanation: we heat our home during the long Vermont winter entirely by burning wood.  Two stoves steadily consume pieces of wood, warming all three floors.  Our family stacks said wood outside to dry in the seasons preceding snow and ice.

These stacks are located in various spots around the house, either at the same altitude or just below.  They consist of, from bottom to top:

1. A wooden support platform.  That's usually old planks, pallets, or scrap, sometimes elevated by bits of wood or stone.  (In this post's photo you can make out two long, old 2x4s, running horizontally along the bottom.)
2. Stacks of cut wood.  No higher than the children's heads.
3. Coverings: tarps or plywood or sheet metal, or a combination.  Weighted down with rocks, after the past two winter's high winds.

These small walls of wood sit outside all year long, on average, drying slowly and steadily.  In summer we haul in a stack to really dry out in the basement, ready to burn once winter makes its presence known.

So caring for this precious supply - buying or cutting wood, stacking it, protecting it from weather - is a yearlong thing.  The stacks are part of our homestead landscape, at their largest looking like fortifications.  This work is a homestead chore, derided but glumly performed by the children.  I (Bryan) associate each spot with podcasts, as I listen to mp3s for (professional) work as I (do homestead) work.  The longest rows, for example, are linked forever with episodes of the very fine Digital Campus.

The total amount of wood is very large, around 12-14 cords by October.  This is a form of prudence.  If we go on to experience a ferocious, drawn-out winter, one far worse than the norm, we're amply supplied.  If winter turns out to be less dire, the stacks which remain come May will stand until the following winter, seasoning well.