Years ago, we had to have a large tree taken down. Two actually. Just not at the same time. When we had the first one cut down, I told the tree service to leave the trunk and all the large branches. I was gonna cut me some fire wood.
I ran up to my local True Value Hardware and rented a chainsaw. Once I got home and realized I’m a pussy, have never used a chainsaw, and that it would likely result in the loss of a limb and a trip to the emergency room, I promptly returned the chainsaw and rented a log splitter.
Did it take longer than a chainsaw? I don’t know. I just said I’ve never used a chainsaw! Did sitting on a section of the stump all day give me blisters on my ass? I know that answer and it would be a yes.
After a long day of splitting a 50′ tree into manageable pieces, I’m sure I let the wood sit there for a lot longer than Christy would have liked, but it eventually got stacked behind the shed.
I didn’t look things up on the internet back then to see the best way to do them, so I just stacked it all up the best I could…on the ground.
I used quite a bit for fire pits over the years, but with my wood on the ground, rotting at the bottom, and the thin pieces of plastic I put over them always deteriorating and not keeping my wood dry, I finally did something about it.
This project was part of a whole yard clean up. Our play area was overrun with weeds. With no animals in the house anymore, our yard was returning back to nature which resulted in a new neighbor moving in with all the bunnies. A SKUNK.
Once I saw the mother and teenage skunk waddling under the shed one night, it was decided. We had to take our yard back.
While Christy and the kids prepped the play area for a long needed re-mulch, I drug out all the wood from behind the shed. Luckily, we chose to do it on one of the hottest days of the year.
After I moved all of the wood from behind the shed, I was left with this.
After raking all of that out into the yard I bagged it for the garbage.
Now it was time to prep the area and build a storage rack that would keep the wood off the ground and allow for proper ventilation to keep the remaining wood from rotting.
Luckily, I am a hoarder of scrap wood, so I had everything on hand to build the rack. The only money spent to prep the area was some 4″ X 4″ to enclose the space and the rocks.
I didn’t follow any specific directions to build the rack. I just saw a video that said it should have ventilation underneath. I was going to drill a bunch of 4″ holes with a hole saw, but that was taking too long and eating up my batteries, so I did that at the ends and used a saw to cut out the center. Even with the center cut out, the 3/4″ plywood and 2″ X 8″s gives it plenty of stability.
Unfortunately, I was not able to save all of my precious wood on the rack. I planned on putting anything that wouldn’t fit at the curb for someone else to use, but most of what was left was rotted, termite ridden, and just not worth saving. I spent the next couple weeks having near daily fires in the fire pit to dispose of all the extra wood and bark. Our neighbor thought were smoking a cow piece by piece due to all the smoke, day and night.
The most important part to preserving the wood after all of that work was making sure it was properly protected from the rain. For that, I bought a 16′ X 20′ commercial tarp, some eye bolts, and some spring snap clips. I already had enough braided poly rope on hand to finish the job of weaving it through the tarp eyelets and securing the tarp.
Christy and I did have to modify the tarp to keep it off the ground so water didn’t accumulate and become an all inclusive resort for mosquitoes. We took a tape measure up and around the sides of the wood rack to get our measurement and folded one side of the tarp up underneath to the nearest aligned eyelet, tied them at the eyelet, and then sealed the sides and top with duct tape to keep water from getting trapped inside the fold.
One finishing touch before putting on the tarp was my concern of the corners on the end supports ripping through the tarp over time. To counter that, I bought a foam pool noodle, cut it to size, cut it down the center to straddle the 2″ X 4″, and secured it with a few screws.
At first I was cutting it with a razor blade and Christy said “Why don’t you use a bread knife?” I tried it and it was the perfect tool to cut a pool noodle. I don’t know how she thought of it. She must have cut pool noodles before we met and never brought it up. I think it cut through pool noodles easier than it cuts through bread.
So there it is. Accessing the wood is as simple as unhooking a clip. I eyeballed the amount of wood I had left and if I bought that much in the prepacked bundles at Lowes, I’d spend around $130. Currently, with the amount of times we do a fire, this wood would last us for years. We plan on building a real fire pit area in the back yard in the next year or so. Having an actual fire pit area, instead of a metal fire pit in the middle of the grass, may change the frequency of our use. Regardless, now I have a rack to stock up on and keep it dry for years of use.
You’re funny.