Firewood Essentials - The Next Generation Show

Kah Supper. The Pepper Broadcasting Network. We have to hit the reset button to create a true culture preparedness, starting at a very young age and filtering all the way up. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Next Generation Show where we delve deeper into the little things in life. Here we explore the lost art of fatherhood, parenthood, and funnelments of preparedness for the world. Today, I'm your host, Ryan Buford along with my co host, Young Master Colin, and today we're broadcasting from the heart of the Pacific Northwest. We thank you for joining us, and there's not a moment to lose, so let's put the weight, put the gloves on, and get moving right in here today. So we have we're on satellite Internet at the moment, so hopefully we're going to be able to make it through the show. If we have audio issues, I guess just let me know when chat. It looks like we got a volcano in there and a couple of other folks. Hopefully we'll join us a little bit later tonight. It's a little bit of a surprise show tonight because we didn't get ahead of the game and get our usual pre pre amp type announcements out on social media and on the website. But today we're going to be doing a show on firewood Essentials and we'll get into that here in a few minutes. But first, for those of you listening on the podcast, we thank you for the support and we'd like you if you get the chance to come on over and join us during the live chat. You can do that by going to Prepperbroadcasting dot com and then you click on the join the live Chat button. It's a blue button right near the top, and you enter whatever username you want and you get plugged in. That's it all, that's all there is to it. I'm in there and there's usually several like minded listeners on the other side, so you can chat with them while we're talking live and streaming this show. You know, every Tuesday night, it is pretty much a good time every time around, so it's always fun to have new folks in. So don't be ashamed, don't be bashful. And I want to give a special shout out to the folks out in Orangeburg, South Carolina. You all are the top listeners in one location this week, So shout out to you guys who turn in and support us. Also, those in Canada, across the Pond, and around the world. We got a couple of new listeners in Austria and El Salvador, so welcome, thanks for listening, and remember, if you'd like, you can always support us on Patreon and if you want to reach me, you can find my information on Prepperbroadcasting dot com at the Next Generation show page. There you'll find all of our social media and contact information and if you want, you can always send me an email directly at Prepperdad atmail dot com. Also, I just wanted to give a special thanks and shout out to everyone who helped promote the ebook last week. It was a big success. We had gosh, maybe two hundred and fifty downloads somewhere around there of the free book while we had it free. So hopefully for those of you out there who got a chance to download a copy, you know, take a look and let me know what you think. Hopefully you guys are enjoying it out there, and we got some great feedback, some five star reviews up on Amazon, so I really appreciate the support and it means a lot coming from anyone who leaves a review. So if you'd like to leave a review, you can always check that out. If you want to get a copy of the book, you can go to our show page and there's a link for that there, and that's the pint sized Prepper Projects book. So so yeah, let's let's get right into it. Just in case we have a have to cut the show short. But today we're going to be talking about firewood essentials. And last year I did we did a show on preparedness activities that you can do in the summertime to get ready for winter, and we dedicated about two or three minutes to talk briefly about firewood, and I thought it would be a good opportunity today to really dig into some of the finer points of firewood and some of the things that would make a big difference to those who may not be used to keeping firewood on hand or using firewood as their main source of heat. No. I know a lot of folks out there might fantasize about the idea of having a cabin in the woods and you know, being able to have all your resources right there at your fingertips to where you can go out and cut your own wood and harvest your. Own animals, and you know. Grow a little bit of your own food, you know, the day after you go out, and you know, leave a large metropolitan area after some sort of collapse, and I I can't tell you how far from the truth that actually is if you're not prepared ahead of time. So I guess to break this down, I just want to share a story with you that I experienced with my It was Colin's grandfather, his his mom's dad, and he and I went out chopping wood because you know, that was their main source of heat, and to me, that was kind of weird. I had never had a We had a fireplace in the house as a kid, but we never used it. And you know, growing up we used electric heat and gas natural gas heat, or whatever was available in the apartments or the houses that we lived in. And his was the first house that I had ever really experienced real wood heat where that was their main source of heat. Now they had baseboard electric heaters, but there was He built the house with his own two hands, and he bought the land and built it with his brother, and they built of a large basement essentially that was designed to house and maintain heat with the help of a giant. Not a giant, it seems like a giant, but it was a fairly good sized woodstove. Well, one of the things that struck me as odd was why he would go through and burn wood when the electricity was just right there and you know, all he had to do is flip a switch and he had heat. You know, why waste the time and energy to do that. Plus you know, me at the time thinking that it was a you know, kind of a pollutant, that it was something that was archaic and something that shouldn't be done because of you know, the obvious you know off gasing or pollution or whatever that you might think. But what it really boiled down to was something totally different. And there's. I guess the way that it was broken down to me was when we were out actually cutting wood and we drove out in the mountains and we wound up taking his pickup truck and a chainsaw and we went up and it was about an hour to get out to where we were getting the wood, and they wound up we wound up finding a law you know, a tree that was ready to fall. And I mean, here's me, you know, some punk kid going along with somebody who knows way more than I do, who spent a lot more time in the woods and knows a lot more about these kind of things. So I'm just kind of, you know, the the dormant bystander, just kind of watching things and making you know, whatever sense of it that I can. And we wound up following this tree and chopping it up. So we get this tree on the ground, we cut it up into rounds, and then we pack it into the back of this pickup truck, and we wound up getting really close to a cord of wood and we stacked it, you know, as much as you can in an eight foot bed to get that cord, and we used every last bit of that wood that we could. This particular treat was tamarack, and it's one of the main hardwoods that we burn, and it's one of the prized hardwoods of the Pacific Northwest, or the majority of the Northwest. We don't have as much of the hard woods as you guys in the east have, like the hickorys and oaks and things like that. Those in this region are more ornamental and they're they're not as widespread, so we tend to chase down the red firs and tamaracks. But anyways, I'm getting off topic. There was something that he told me when we were out there cutting wood, and it was right after we had loaded up the back of the pickup truck, and you know, we were hot. You know, it's about this time of year. It was probably eighty degrees outside and here we are sweating packing rounds in the back of a pickup truck. And I asked him, you know, why why go through all the work and effort of getting firewood. I mean, you could just as easily just turn on the heater. Why why do all this? Why why take on all the extra effort. And he told me something that his father had told him, and what he says would What he said was firewood heats you three times. It heats you when you go to collect it, it heats you when you go to chop it and stack it, and then it heats you again when you go to burn it. And when he said that, it kind of floored me a little bit because what he was saying was that essentially, firewood, even though it might seem inefficient, is actually three times as efficient as if you were to turn on your electric or gas furnace, because you're heating yourself three times just in the act of collecting your own firewood. And it takes work, it takes effort, it takes time, but the rewards of doing that are significantly greater. And I think it's something that few people realize how significant that reward is. And it's not something that's tangible. It's not something that you can put a price on. It's a reward that is. How do you even put that. It's something that comes far after you actually perform the act, and it's a reward that happens when you're cold and you go into your own wood stash and you're able to heat your home and your family because of something that you did or some sort of preparations that you made on your own accord. So on today's show, Colin and I are going to be going over some of the things with regard to firewood and why it's essential and why it is important that you take the right precautions when it goes when it comes to you know, knowing the essentials and some of the basics of essentially firewood cord would But before we get get to chopping. On today's show, Colin, would you like to share your pint size? No, not your pint sized pepper project your fun Fact of the week. Yo yo yo, Phil listeners, I'm the co host of the Next Generation show, Colin Buford, speaking with my father and the host of the show, Ryan and today we're going to be discussing how to prepare yourself for this year's upcoming winter with some nice dry firewood. But before I get too far to that, I like to quickly cover the crafty. Colin fun Fact of the week. For those of you who aren't aware of the Craft Call and Fun Fact of the Week, it's a segment on our show that gives you a fun tid bit of information of something that's usually related to the show topic. Some of you have already known, and some of you might have had no clue. So without any further ado, let's get right into it. Today's Craft Call and Fune Fact of the Week is would type, size, moisture, percentage, oxygen and heat are all things you want to take into consideration when collecting or keeping an eye out for firewood. Yep, that's exactly right, and that's probably the most essential thing and really the main fact of what we're going to get into today. So I'm glad you brought that up early, because we'll get into those a little bit deeper. But all those things are critical when it comes to being able to provide enough heat and the right kind of heat for your family. So Volcana in chat is blowing it up with her stories about, you know, her neighbors in their firewood, and I think, I think it's important for people to realize quantity how much it actually takes to be able to heat your home during the wintertime. And this is one consideration that on the top is the number one consideration that you need to keep in mind. How much wood does it actually take to heat your home? Well, some resources indicate let's see if this is a good one. I've got a a couple of websites that I'm gonna be sharing with the chat room. But some of the essentials of you know, understanding how much you need are they're hard, They're okay, how do I put this? It's hard to gauge how much you actually need until you've actually lived through a winter with wood. That being said, it's important to understand how much wood it has taken you beforehand to be able to handle that. So if the person before like if you buy a house from someone else. It's important to know how much firewood they actually use in a winter, and that can change, that can go up or down. So, for example, I was told for our house it would be about you know, four or five cords per year. So I, you know, went with that and decided that was the way to go. And I bought an efficient, a more efficient wood stove, thinking that the addition of the wood stove and the efficiency would mean that I would be able to burn less wood. Right, that's the whole point. It burns more efficient, more complete, so you get more heat longer, that sort of thing. So I went with a little bit less firewood than I was expecting, and it wound up biting me. I remember that first winter here on the homestead. I think I had gotten three chords, thinking that, well, you know, I should be okay. But by the middle of winter we were scrambling trying to get more, and luckily we found someone who was selling cord wood on Craigslist and we were able to get it fairly cheap, considering it was the middle of winter and other people were selling it at a higher price, which is something that we'll get into a little bit later in the show. On how not to get burned when buying firewood. So the following year I made sure to get more wood than I would need. So we wound up dipping into stashes from year from the year before to try and make sure that we had enough. And you know, after about two or three years, we kind of got it dialed in. But then last winter hit and we. Went through. Through three, four five, all almost six chords of wood, and we were burning from early October to early May. Which is odd because that's when we got our windows put in. Yeah, so we actually made some improvements to the homestead, including some high efficiency windows that are designed to be able to keep cold out and keep heat in during those times. But it's still an old farmhouse. There's lots of drafts, and it's it's just kind of one of those things, you know, poor insulation and that, this and that, whatever you want to call it. So I thought it was gonna make a big difference. Come to find out, I still went through six chords of wood. The link that I just dropped in the chat room is a link from e fireplacestore dot com, and it's simply how much wood to buy, And that link is a really good indication or you know, general idea of how much would you'll need. Essentially, the best way to determine how to how much wood you're probably going to need is by figuring on one cord for every thirty to sixty days or every one to two months. So October, November, December, January, February, March, April, that's seven months. So we were burning about one cord every thirty days, even with as efficient, you know, as efficient as the heating was, and we actually had a fairly mild winter, but the duration of winter was significantly longer than it usually is. So one of the things you want to keep in mind when it comes to firewood or if you intend to heat your home with firewood, it's really important to make sure you have enough set aside. So how do you do that? How do you how do you even get started with that? Well, the sea should we get into sourcing wood. Let's do sourcing wood first. Yeah, we'll lose sourcing wood. So where do you go to get your wood? Well, I kind of shared a story of us, you know, going out into the woods. We had a special permit that allowed us to cut a cord of wood on National Forest land, and I think we can have up to ten cords and you pay thirty five bucks a cord if you do it yourself. But that's a lot of work, it's a lot of time, and you have to have the tools and equipment to be able. To do that. So some of the ways if you don't have access to either a pickup truck or a trailer to be able to haul wood, or the tools or experienced to be able to do it yourself, some of the things that you're you're left with are purchasing cord wood from someone who's able to either deliver it for you or if you can go and pick it up if you have the means to do that. Sometimes you can actually reach out to arborists and when they fallow trees or large limbs, if you have a place to store them, they might actually just drop them off at your place. If you work with them, you know, sometimes they'll give you a deal. Sometimes they'll drop it off for free. If you have the space, you can buy truckloads of firewood or dump truckloads and just have them dump it in one spot for you, you know, one stop, have it done. If you buy it by the log or buy the truckload board foot, you can actually get you know, maybe fifteen to twenty cords on one truckload and that might be enough for four years. Keep in mind, you're talking a semi truckloads, so it's not like something you can drop into your suburban area and just you know, have at it in the middle of the street. So you got to keep that in mind. If you have enough room, that's something worth considering. And that's something that we actually consider a lot, and I might actually do that this year. The way that works out is if you can buy in bulk. It's a good way to do that. It's it's a it's ideal. Some of the things you can do ahead of time is purchase firewood by the cord or you know, by the truckload. But you want to make sure that you're getting what you pay for. So how do you know if you get what you're paying for? Essentially, well, there's a lot of there's a lot of folks out there who might sell you a load of firewood by the truck bed or something like that, and you might think, well, that's that's perfect because it's all heaped up, it looks like it it measures in the back of a pickup truck to be you. Know, so and so and so own dimensions and and like this. So, well, how do you know you're getting what you're what you paid for. Well, there's different ways that wood can be stacked that uh, that ensure that you're getting a good deal. Wood that is cut into halves. So let's say, for example, you buy wood in rounds. If you take those rounds and cut them in half, you can get even more wood in the same space, the same physical dimensions. If you cut those halves into split parts, you can actually get even more. So essentially, the density of your cord wood changes based on how far down it's cut. So if you follow, essentially you want to make sure that your cord would or whatever wood you're sourcing, is able to meet those requirements. Now, for those of you who don't know, a cord is four feet by four feet, sorry, four feet by eight feet by six feet in dimensions. Basically, it's one hundred and twenty eight cubic feet. So, however you measure that one hundred and twenty eight cubic feet, that's one court of wood. If you have those dimensions in rounds, then you're gonna lose wood because after you cut the rounds down, then your dimensions are gonna get smaller. That's right. So and that's that's a key factor in making sure that when you source you would that you get wood that is stacked properly. Another good option for sourcing wood is like Craigslist. A lot of times you can find firewood on there and cord wood. Sometimes people will deliver it, and in general it'll cost about two hundred to two hundred and fifty bucks a cord. What those costs in mind, if you figure that you're going to be burning one cord of wood every thirty days, then that is how you gauge the value or the efficiency of your heating system. In some cases, electric heat can run you three or even four hundre dollars a month come winter time, but if you're able to supplement that heating source with firewood, you'll actually save twenty to thirty percent sometimes just by having firewood on hand and burning that instead of using electric heat. Plus, it serves as a good alternative to heat and heating your home if the power should go out. For those of you who follow me on social media, you might have seen the video and the footage that I posted on I think I did it on I might have put it on Twitter, maybe on Instagram, I can't remember. But we were actually snowed in for four days and it kind of didn't phaze me. I mean, it was kind of a pain because I had to make up the time at work, but all in all, we had wood on hand, and we had food on hand, and even though we didn't have power, we had access to water. So the neighbors, on the other hand, you know, every time they lost power, they would have to try and find their way into town. In some cases it meant hiking two miles out to the highway with their kids so that they could get picked up by a friend or family member. So one of the things, one of the hidden benefits of having firewood and storing firewood is making you know, having the ability to hunker down and really keep your family warm and safe instead of you know, venturing out into the cold, which can be extremely dangerous. So making sure you have enough on hand is critical and learning that is going to be a little bit of a curve, So you want to know that ahead of time, or have a little bit of extra maybe even twice as much extra and then just burn the rest next year. Let's see sourcing wood obviously, so we got into that story. So Volcano and Chat shared a story about one of her friends or neighbors that's got a huge woodshed that they're expanding to get multiple years of wood. And that's something that we're trying to do here by trying to make sure that, you know, if we get an entire truckload with twenty cords, that has a potential to heat my house for three to five years, depending on how bad the winters are. And one of the things you can do to store large amounts of firewood is once it's cut and stacked, you want to make sure that it is open to air on all sides or as many sides as you can afford, and just have a cover over the top to keep rain and snow off of it moisture. Essentially, this cover can be as simple as a tart or you can actually build a structure. Well, no matter what you do, as long as you're able to keep the top dry, you're in good shape. So storing wood is a critical part of, you know, making sure that your firewood is actually going to be useful. So why is that? Why why would would storage going to make any difference? Because you know, if you can just go out and pick up a log off the ground and burn it, what difference does it make to just leave it outside and let us sit in the rain? Any ideas are you asking me? Yeah, I mean it's not going to get what again, right? Well, like if he if it's storing, If you just store it outside without any cover and it's just sitting there out. In the rain, it's just going to be exposed pretty much, and it. Has a likely like a very good likelyhood of molding or rotting faster if you leave it either completely exposed or if you cover it completely. So there's a fine balance where you want to make sure that you have air flow around the woodpile and that you have cover over the top of it. And this is important because this is where we get to making sure that the wood that you get is properly seasoned. So what is seasoning. Seasoning is essentially allowing wood to remain in a dry location over a long period of time and remain dry over time. By doing so, it will create a better product for you in the end. The longer you can let wood sit and air out and dry out, the better it'll burn. This is because wood has a natural moisture content, even if it's dead wood. If you cut down a dead tree, and it's the same as if you were to go out into the woods and collect stick and twigs off the ground, versus getting good kindling that isn't directly on the ground to build your fire, your campfire. What happens when you have wood that's been sitting on the ground that you burn, just like volcanos as a chat, it doesn't burn. It just sits there and hisses and smolders and pops and smokes. You know, it's really really tough. But one of the worst things about wet wood is that it doesn't burn efficiently. When you put wet wood wet wood into a wood stove, you will get heat, but it's going to take a lot more of it because what happens is the wood has to burn hot enough to create steam to burn off the moisture inside the wood. So all the energy, all the heat that you're gaining from the wood is getting lost just to dry out the wood, instead of putting the wood in the fire and allowing it to generate heat that is free from any sort of moisture. So the longer you can let wood sit the better. As a general rule, a good practice for storing wood long term is to and we mentioned this on that previous episode that I mentioned before, is to take your firewood and if you cut it into at least halves and stack it for a year, and then the following season, split that into whatever you want, and you can't like you know, you can usually do it into wedges or however, into smaller portions that are easily able to burn or put it into your woodstove or fireplace or whatever, and these are kind of the Usually the size you want is something around like what you would see in those little bundles in a. Grocery store, you know, in the front of those. But once you've let it season a year in halves and then a year in cut wedges, by then you should have wood that is more than efficient and really low and moisture content. Ideally, you'll want to have wood that is at least fourteen to ten percent moisture content or below. Once you start getting above fourteen, you know, in the twenties and thirties, forties, and even fifty percent moisture content. One it's going to be nearly impossible to split. And two you're not going to get any of the heat benefits out of the wood, so you're pretty much wasting the wood and you're causing all sorts of damage and smoke to the inside of your equipment, your wood stove. So seasoning your wood is critical. And making sure that that wood is seasoned when you're ready to burn it and when you know that it's ready when you go to grab it is critical. So I guess let's we're at the bottom of the hour. Let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll wrap up with a couple more key points on storing and producing firewood, and then we will give you just kind of a brief summary on the next pinte size prepper project of the week. So hold on, everybody, and we'll be right back. Medical readiness is an area that preppers off and overlook. 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So back to it, we were We've been talking about firewood and some of the considerations you need to keep in mind when it comes to proper storage, you know, getting firewood, some of the tools and the equipment that you might need, you know how much well we didn't get into that part yet, but you know, how much would you actually need for a season, and that kind of stuff, how to stack it properly, what to watch out for. So right before we left we were talking about what firewood and volcano and chat Mesh mentioned that, you know, they've got a log splitter and her dad would go out and collect firewood after you know, a major windstorm, because a lot of times you will have dead fall or or you know, just fall trees that go over, and that's a good time to go out and get firewood, get it for free. And when you do that, you can you have you have an opportunity to take advantage of goodwood that's already been drying potentially. So one of the things you need to keep in mind is that when you the earlier you can split wood, the longer it will have, like the more of an opportunity you'll have to dry out. But it's very difficult to split wood when it comes like when it's moist, when it has a lot of moisture content. So how do you tell these things? How do you how do you determine when wood is ready to burn, when it's ready to split, and how much moisture content you're dealing with. Well, there's a couple of tools that you can use. Some of the essentials that we have are you know, your basic acts or a splitting mall hatchet for the rounds, a sharpening tool which is generally a round disc that's used to do that. Or you can use a grinder with a flapper wheel on it. Generally that works pretty good. And you know, in some cases like volcano mention, log splitters. One of the other tools that we keep on hand and it's one of the best tools to have in your toolbox. It's about the size of a tic tac box and it's just a little moisture meter that you can get from most hardware stores for somewhere around three to eight bucks. And essentially it's got you know, an electric I don't know if it's a diode is the right word for it, but it's got two probes on it and there are metal probes and what you do is you turn the device on and you whatever right like right when you split wood after you know, if it's been sitting or whatever. You can split it with a hatchet or axe or whatever you got on hand, and then you put that probe directly into the firewood where you made your split, and that'll give you a good indication of what the actual moisture content is at the wood. It'll usually read in percentages we callin. Has been busy over the last I don't know, three or four days splitting and stacking wood from wood that we sourced from a tree that had been cut down nearby and it was just cut down this year, so it's too wet to burn that. The moisture content reading on that came out at fifty percent and then it actually overloaded the device, so that's definitely not ready to burn, even splitting it at the wood burner or you know, splitting it with the wood splitter. You know, maybe by the end of the summer we might get it down to twenty or thirty percent, but there's a pretty good chance that I won't be able to burn that this year, even if I you know, if it was in a dire situation, it wouldn't it would not help to be able to burn that. So is there a way to tell moisture content without that moisture meter? Well, not necessarily, but what you can do is gauge the moisture by how you chop the wood or or what you observe when you're chopping wood. So when you have a round that's ready to be split, you'll notice that I can usually well, yeah, how do you tell? Oh, well, there's there's a mixed bit of trees that have been split in around out on the pile of wood that I've been splitting. And the more dry stuff usually is lighter because it has less moisture in it. But when you actually split it, it doesn't splinter, or it doesn't, it's not it doesn't take anything to split hardly. I could probably do it without the long splitter. But you can tell it's usually it's pretty light. It's not like physically it looks light, not so much like you know, usually you can tell just by looking at it. Sometimes, but more wet wood it's heavier and when you split it it won't split easily. Right, And what what Colin's saying is critical. I mean, when you when you go to split wood, if you have a round and you look down at it, you'll see something very specific and you'll see the rings, you know, the cent the concentric rings that start from the center and work their way outward. Right well, as wood dries, it'll start to form a split that goes from the from one edge to the center, and the are the best ways to tell if wood is ready to burn or if it's close to being ready to burn. Generally, after about a year of being seasoned in a round, if you take your axe or you're splitting mall from the opposite side of that crack that's formed and try and split that wood with one hit, then it's usually good to burn, or it's you know, it's at least usually good to split and get ready for seasoning for the for the for the year. But it's important that you do that now. You know, you don't want to be waiting until middle of winter to be splitting your rounds because even though there's that slight, you know, fissure that's formed, it's not going to be around the whole you know round. So you have to make sure that you actually split that wood early and offense to make sure that it has enough time to dry out. But real wet. Stuff, you can even tell just one splitting. If if you're using a log splitter, it's usually not so fast like it is with an axe. But when you use the logs splitter on the wood, sometimes you can see the actual moisture you're like seeping out around the axe head. Yep. So a general indication. And if you ever want to try this with someone who comes to your campfire and thinks he's the king of the walk, give him a round of wood that is fairly green, and make sure that you have a round of wood that's dry and seasoned, and you can go head to head with them and they'll chop and chop and chop, and they will not be able to split that round of wood and you'll be able to just smoke right through it. And the difference is the moisture content. And you can tell if wood is really wet partially by the sound. So if you throw the axe or the splitting them all down and it makes us just a thud sound, it's not gonna it's not ready to go. It's not ready to be split yet. Usually when it's ready, it'll make a clear pop and it'll split right down the middle or right right toward the center of the wood. So you know, sometimes the sound is a good indication, the weight is a good indication, and you know, if you have a moisture meter, that's an even better indication because you can really get it down to that moisture rating that you want before you're ready to burn. So, wow, spend a lot of time talking about moisture moisture meting. But that's that's pretty critical. Kind of like Colin mentioned on the initial fact is that that moisture content is essential when it comes to making sure that that wood is efficient and it's going to actually heat your home. And the reason for that that I want to spend a little bit of time on that is because for a lot of folks, you know, you think you can go out and split a quart of wood, or you know, drop a tree, put it in rounds, and start burning it when you go to your bug out location or your cabin in the woods, and it ain't gonna do anything for you. It's just gonna sit there and burn and smolder, and it's not gonna heat you up like it's supposed to. You have to make sure that that stuff has been seasoned a long time before you get out there and start to burn. It. So what kind of wood do you burn? Well, there are several types of wood and different densities of wood that make a big difference. So here in the Northwest, like I mentioned before, we focus on tamarack because it's readily available and it's a relatively hard wood that puts out a lot of heat. So I've got a link another link that I'm going to drop into the chat that is from woodheat dot org and the website is good dash firewood dot html and it has a pretty solid list. Let me get back to the chat so I can drop this in real quick, just one moment. Oh, there you go. You guys have it now, So we'll get back to it. So, some of the hardest density wood that's the longest burning and generally puts out the hottest or the most BTUs per you know, per cubic foot or cubic yard or however you want to measure it are ironwood, rock, elm, hickory oak obviously, sugar maple, beach, yellow birch, ash, red elm, red maple, tamarack, douglas fir, white birch, Manitoba maple, red alder, hemlock, poplar pine, bass wood, spruce and balsam, and each of these have different densities, and there's different places that you can go online to actually get great graphs that indicate not only the density, but the burn ratios and the actual BTUs put out per cord. And if you want to get really down to the nitty gritty, that's that's kind of where you can start. Some of the prices you know are going to vary, so like, for example, a cord of red fur might be you know, one hundred and seventy five bucks, where a cord of tamarack might be two hundred and twenty five bucks, And that fifty dollars difference is made up in the quality of heat that you get out of that wood. So there's a reason there's a price difference there. It's not just because somebody's trying to make a buck. It's because someone who knows enough about the firewood that they're selling is selling it at because it will last longer and it will burn hotter. So it's important to understand and know which trees are going to be best for you and for your home, and which trees are accessible to you wherever you live. So i'd love to get hickory, because that stuff burns great and it'll burn for a long time. So and I'm really kind of surprised because it puts out a lot of heat, but it just doesn't I mean, unless I want to go cut up a bunch of furniture, Uh it does. It doesn't do a whole lot of good for me to be able to do that. And how about ironwood? What is what is this story? Like you? I have never I don't know where to get iron wood. I don't imagine that. I don't even know what part of the country that would be from. But it might be something up in Canada or maybe down to the southwest. I don't know, unless I want to chat, might know where iron wood's from where what you know, what what kind of rake it has with the rest of them, But anyways, you know, So there's kind of a general rundown of the types of wood that you want to burn. Some of the stuff you don't want to burn is anything if it if you pick it up and it's really really light, generally it's not gonna be a good quality burn or it's gonna burn really hot, really fast, and it's not gonna put out the lasting heat that you want from something like a dense hardwood some of your white pines and stuff like that, it's it's not going to be nearly as good as you. Know red for for example. So knowing the different tree types is pretty it is pretty important. If it's real light too, could mean that wood's rotting. Or yep, that's a good point. You might have good wood or wood that might be a tamarack or red fur. And if you pick it up and it's really light, you split it and then it just kind of crumbles from the inside because it's rotting, you know it, And there's nothing you can. Do about that, you know it. Just that's just the way it is sometimes when you. Find that wood. So it's that's why it's good to understand what you're burning and where and you know what where you're getting it from, no know what it is. So let's see what else? What else do you want to try and get anything else in here? Before were running out to the top of the hour, Probably shouldn leave time for the pine sized pepper project. Yeah, okay, so let's let's take a few minutes. And you know, there's a lot more that we could talk about firewood and you know, the importance of getting it in split right now. So you know, if you I know, it's we're here, we are getting ready to launch off a bunch of fireworks and it's the middle of summer and nobody wants to think about this, but right now is the time to get firewood before it gets to be to where you can't get firewood. And you know, take take those opportunities now because if you can get it cut down into rounds and split. Sometimes if it's already dry enough, you can get it to where you might be able to burn it in a pinch this year. But if nothing else, the longer you have it set in, you know, to dry out, the better off you'll be. Oh and it looks like yep. Iron wood can be found in the Sonora Desert of Mexico, Arizona, and California. So with that, let's spend a little bit of time talking about the pint sized Prepper project of the week. So with firewood in mind, we thought we would dig into bushcraft a little bit and talk about some of the things that you could do with firewood other than just burn it. So college you want to spend a few minutes talking about you know, some of the bushcraft things that you could do with your wood rounds. I guess sure. So from what I've seen in my travels browsing through Instagram and social media and just anywhere on the internet or in magazines. Things like that. As far as bushcraft goes, there's a lot of interesting, interesting things you can do with fireword or any type of wood. Really. Some of them include like cutlery and things like that. You know, I've seen pretty cool spoons and mugs. You know, they're the guy at the farmer's get to make some really cool spoons and cutlery out of firewood, bowls and stuff. Yeah, I mean, people can get real into detail as far as etching and things like that goes right into the the wood that you might be carving. But there are bowls and just things that you might. Need in general, like say, if you're using an actual cast iron pot or pan and you don't have anything to. Pick it up with, you can use like you can you can make your own tongues or yeah yeah, or even like a little sleeve. So the pintin Is product project today is a little bit looser, but one of the things that we wanted to at least expose and and we'll we'll probably do one of these here in the future. Is you can actually you can actually use wood to form things that you would normally think they could they can use for it, things like tree taps. Essentially, you can take a small round of wood, carve it into a cone shaped part on one end, drill a hole through it, and then you can use it as a tap in a tree. And you can actually tap you know, the maple right out of the tree using nothing but a piece of wood. And your options are pretty much limitless. And it's just something that we wanted to share with the listeners, as you know, an option of something that you can do other than just burn it by taking the time to go out and actually carve something out of the wood that you're collecting, and you'll find a lot of the properties of that wood by working with it. So some of the skills that are developed and encouraged through this is you know, are generally you know, safe handling of knives like whittling and cutting, the importance of understanding the moisture content of wood and how and the properties of wood like the density and stuff like that. And also some of the creativity that comes along with this. You know, sometimes if you can take a stick and turn it into something you could you do have the potential to actually make money off of it if you want, if you want to go that route, you know, take take the entrepreneurial side, or you could survive off of it by making some sort of a cooking utensil or or something like that. So it's kind of hard to do one project on that large of a scale, but we'll make sure that we get some photos up on Instagram of this one over the weekend and share it with you out there. So I want to make a stick out of wood. Make a stick like a like a a stick, beating stick, an ugly stick. Yeah, nice like yeah. So I think with that for the final takeaway today, I think it's important that if you are considering the potential of bugging out or having a bug out location, or having a cabin in the woods that you're going and retreat to, it's critical that you keep in mind how you intend to heat yourself through the winter and what kind of steps that you've taken in advance to be able to do this. Now, some of you might be able to just make sure that you have stockpiled wood on hand, or you know a little bit of extra stashed away somewhere, or have a source somewhere. But it's a good idea to make sure that not only do you have a backup for that resource, that you have a skill set and knowledge to be able to back up your backup. Have you ever split wood before? Have you ever run a chainsaw? I mean that alone will eliminate about forty to fifty percent of the people who actually need firewood. If you've never run a chain saw, or if you've never sharpened an axe, you'll be struggling from day one. Plus you'll be putting yourself at risk for injury. So when it comes to firewood, it's critical to keep in mind some of these essential key factors and make sure that you consider these things not only just as passing thoughts, but that you make them, you know, put them at the forefront of your survival when it comes to you know, being able to get by on nothing more than the firewood and the stores that you have. It's hard to imagine that a cord of wood, which is one hundred and twenty eight cubic feet is going to get burned up in a single month, but it is and it's hard to visualize that. There's no way that you'll be able to access that much firewood. If you intend to burn your own furniture, your own you know, fence posts, your own doors, it'll only get you so far. So it's critical that you make sure you have extra stores on hand and you take the time now to develop those resources, develop those skills, and make sure that you have a thorough understanding of what's good to burn and what isn't before you start setting out. So with that, lastly, in case you missed it, on last week's show, we did a special on late season planting where we kind of gave our humble advice on what you can do to get ready for a second planting and make sure that you have a harvest for early October or earlier late October. I guess this fall. And remember, if you missed any of our old shows, you can always check out the previous episodes episodes on the show page or on your favorite streaming service. So while you're there, be sure to leave us a five star review. It does help to boost our presence and it allows us to share this message with others. Next week, we are probably going to be doing a pre recorded show because we're going to be we're going to be mia for next week for some family events, and we're going to be taking that and turning it into a show sort of. So we're probably gonna be doing a show on vacation preparedness or travel ready preparedness because we're actually going to be heading to the Oregon coast, which, for those of you who are paying attention to some of the stuff on the news is going to be a little hairy or could be harry, depending on the way Antifa ramps up their activities in the Portland area. So stay tuned. We will keep you updated and you know, hopefully we'll be able to get you a pre recorded show and make sure that you guys still have at least something to listen to while we're out. That's it for today, everyone, Well, thank you for joining us on the Next Generation Show, and don't forget to tune in next time, where we explore another aspect of the little things in life that make all the difference in the world. This is your host, Ryan Buford and you're a co host, Colin Buford, reminding you to stay informed, get involved, and be prepared. Have a great night everybody, and make it a great week. Thank you for listening to the Prepper Broadcasting Network, where we promote self reliance and independence. Tuning in tomorrow for another great show, and visit us at Prepper Broadcasting dot comm.