I was recently returning from the ‘100 Acre Woods’ here at the farm, with the umpteenth tractor load of firewood, when it dawned on me… Our customers probably don’t realize the key role that firewood plays in our on-farm dairy processing operation.

Shown above is our beloved and aged 29 year old tractor the ‘5130.’  This faithful girl has served Coulter Farms unceasingly for, lo, these last 21 growing seasons.  Plowing, discing, harrowing, mowing and raking and baling hay, this beast of burden has put on over 8,000 hours of 85 horsepower diesel workhorse time for us.  After each 9 month green season, you might expect us to put this trustworthy friend away in a quiet barn for a well-deserved rest over the winter.  The reality is, the 5130 (its ‘Case-International’ model number, as well as our pet-name for her) hardly gets a breather after Thanksgiving Day, before heading back out to work.  She works on the same schedule as her farmer/owners… 24/7/365 on call and ready for action… sometimes a little bleary eyed, but ready, nonetheless.

Once the ground is frozen and the snowflurries are furiously flying, the 5130 doesn’t turn right out of the barn but left. The farm fields to the right of the barn are brown and resting… silent and dormant as they enjoy their long winter’s nap. No, the 5130’s new stomping grounds, for the next 3 months, are towards the woods… ‘no, left turn, girl… lets head for the woods!’ the patient farmer exhorts his iron horse.

The Coulter Family’s farm house is heated with hot water from our outdoor wood furnace. That uses a fair amount of firewood, but the real demand is from processing our organic milk into lightly pasteurized bottled milk, kefir, yogurt, butter, ice cream and 23 varieties of pasteurized and raw milk cheeses.

The voracious wood-furnace expects to be filled every day, even in the summer, for heating milk and heating water for the unending pile of dishwashing in our cheese room. During the coldest winter weather, the furnace is like our family, expecting to be fully fed three times per day… on processing days. Needless to say, we don’t just need a small pile of firewood.

Thankfully, we are blessed to have plenty of it on our farm.  And, guess what… the amazing thing about firewood?…it DOES grow on trees!  As we gather wood, we fill the loader forks of the 5130 with limbs and logs that we can lift or manhandle.  Once the forks are full, we use a winch on the back of the tractor to drag a few trees that might be too heavy to lift.  Once fully loaded, its time for determined grit, low gear, roaring throttle and four wheel drive to get us and the heavy load out of the steep woods… no room for the tenderhearted or timid when we’re coming up a steep, snowy hill with five or 6 tons of firewood dragging behind the tractor and piled precariously on the front.  Keep that load moving and the greasy side of the tractor down or suffer the ignominious shame of trudging out of the woods to beg for someone to come get you ‘unstuck’!  

We never cut down any good-quality, thriving trees for burning. We follow the ‘3 D’s’ principle in gleaning our firewood from the woods…’burn only trees that are Dead, Down or Done For.’ Instead of letting dying trees go to waste and rot, we pluck them off of our fences and trails and keep our woods tidy. We also improve the genetics of our forest as we remove weak specimens and leave the strongest trees room to grow and thrive and repopulate our woodlot with higher quality genetics than what we are taking out.

Once out of the woods, up to three ‘worker bees’ with chainsaws descend on the precious crop… chewing it into 28″ lengths to feed the firebox of the furnace.

The whole family can lend a hand with the duties of stacking!

We have 30 firewood racks that we built from scrap industrial shelving in our on-farm welding shop, managed by Jason.

These racks store the wood under tarps for a year until the wood is dry enough to burn efficiently.

Most rounds of firewood can be split by a stout fellow with a splitting maul…

but some require the services of our 30 ton log splitter… maybe you’ll notice the can of starting fluid sitting on it? The old gas engine is about like me… it has put in enough time that it’s entitled to a cup of ‘pick me up’ before it can get to work…

After a long day of ‘making firewood,’ before we head in to enjoy a hearty supper, we feed the trusty wood furnace and take a minute to gaze, transfixed, into the roaring inferno in its maw, confident that the milk will heat, the dish water will be hot, the house will be warm when we wake up in the morning and (last but not least…) aaahhh! That hot hot shower is going to feel REALLY good!