Speckled Alder Firewood

One of the biggest disadvantages of heating and cooking with the same stove is that occasionally we want enough heat to cook with but the cabin is already warmer than we want. Other than having two separate stoves there is not much to do about that but the right type of wood can help. When we want to fry up that bacon and those eggs we need high heat but only for a little while. If we put in some  good dry oak or hickory we will get the heat but also a nice big bed of coals that will have us opening the doors and windows to get the temperature in the cabin back down out of the 90's. What we need is wood that burns hot, fast, and leaves few coals.  Speckled Alder, Alnus rugosas, fits the bill perfectly. A small tree that abounds in our area,it seldom reaches 30 feet tall and 3-4 inches in diameter. It likes wet areas and often grows in the sunny parts of swamps and marshes. It forms large stands in much of our area and sends up rapid growing shoots from the stump.I cut the pile in the picture in about 3 hours using the tools in the picture. Once it is cut up it will be 3/4 to a full face cord of the perfect cooking wood. It drys fast when cut in the winter and will be ready to use in a couple months if we need it. Since the swamps are froze up now it is a good time to harvest some. I take just the larges trunks from each clump leaving the smaller trunks for another year.