Site Discussions

Laurie, loved your memories and comments about wood heat. My friends and I believe that wood heat has a special radiant wave length not possessed by other fuel forms such as gas, oil, and electric etc. The burning wood imparts this very comfortable wavelength to everything it heats, which in turn projects it to everything surrounding it. I have a friend with a combination wood or oil heat furnace. You can definitely tell the difference when the forced air furnace is in the wood heat mode!!

In winter the branches of the Colorado blue spruce, Engleman spruce and sub alpine fir appear smaller as if they have shrunk. Is this a result of water leaving the needles or some other phenomena? Or an illusion?

Nice!

It was an absolute shock to hear Irwin’s passing away…We can’t believe such a gentle, kind and loving person leaving us so early. We were hoping he’d recover soon and to see him again this summer!

Irwin was a person who has a special talent to truly put his mind and hands together - just look at the “little” charming business he operates. We vividly remember he brought our super excited 7-year old Aaron onto his gigantic machines and demonstrated how these monsters worked. Irwin was talented in so any aspects - as a skier, as a ski instructor, as a professor, as an engineer, as a business owner, as a community volunteer, a loving son/father/husband, and the list goes on and on… He certainly didn’t waste his talent as he had helped and influenced so many others.

Irwin will be dearly missed by us, as a friend and a source of inspiration.

Hi Laurie. We’ve heated with wood for 35 years now. First in our condo in Williston for 8 years and then in our house in Cambridge. We have a wood furnace. Her name is, of course, Woody. When it’s our turn (my husband and I) to go down and feed the creature we always say, “Going down to feed Woody.” There is nothing like wood heat as your article portrays. However, by the time April rolls around I’m ready to ditch the ashes and splinters in my fingers to flip the oil switch but we never do. The ashes go into the compost and garden. It always gives not just heat but fertilizer and comes in real handy when there’s ice on the road. Melts ice better then salt. We’ll heat with it until we keel over. Hope we can do it.

Thanks-a lovely piece. I’ve been trying to figure out why I don’t hear the pack at night now that it’s winter. Used to hear them every night in the fall. I miss hearing them but at least I know now that winter-quiet is normal. Thank you!

In the late 70’s within the Manistee National Forest near the town of Irons we would camp along the Little Manistee river where the Wood Thrush song could be heard as if “echoing.” now living near Rockford MI, only on occasion every year or so will we hear the song. The decline is noticed but I keep a keen ear out for my favorite Bird.

Great article. I want to try dry aging some venison next season- this was the first season my husband started hunting again after a few year hiatus. I think we’ll both hunt next year and my biggest goal is always to honor the meat the best it can be… my honey got his last deer of the season yesterday. He completely de-boned and processed same day and I spent the evening making a bone broth- today I made dumplings with veggies and the bits of meat that cooked down off the bone and some of the marrow. Soooo soul warming! ...next year, dry aging!

Irwin was a wonderful man.  He lives around the corner from us.  We have purchased our firewood from him for years.  When it came time for our daughter to be granted a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, we chose to build an accessible trail through our woods.  Irwin provided the wood for the bridges and, with one of his sons, helped build them.  He welcomed local school children to his saw mill operation and let them pick out wood to take to the school for a Loose Parts playground.  He cared about the woods but he cared about people even more.  He will be missed.

A visit to Irwin’s lumber mill was a wonderful opportunity to learn about wood, trees, communities, respect, and so much more. His wisdom will be missed.

I second Marg’s Norwegian friend’s comment about surviving summer. I am also of Scandinavian descent—love winter and become positively nonfunctional in hot, humid weather.

Last fall My friend Mike shot a nice spike deer. After gutting out the animal we took it to tagging station . I like the heart meat so I asked Mike for it and he left it in woods with the rest of the guts. We went back and when we returned there was a Turkey Vulture there and had already gobbled it down. The only way this bird could have got there that quick is by smell. This was in a brush area and quite camouflaged.

Some of us have long thought this. Certainly Turkey Vultures obviously can smell and are able to detect well hidden carrion. As a long time Turkey hunter, I have long wondered if wild Turkeys could also detect human odor. I think the jury’s out on that one, but I have occasionally suspected it.

I’m so glad to read this! I have a friend (who has a degree in fisheries and wildlife) that insisted birds can’t smell. I had told her that the birds who invade my vineyard just at the precise moment my grapes are ripe know when they’re ripe, because they can smell them. She said it was the color. I told her it didn’t matter if they were white or red, the birds KNEW! And the crows that picked at a bag of garbage that wasn’t double-bagged vs. one that only held wadded up Christmas wrap and wet cardboard—they can smell the difference! She cited the Audubon research, and I said my observations prove this is WRONG! :-)

The definition of a life well-lived.

Thank you for the great info! If we were to plan a hike in our area (Sunkhaze Meadows NWR in Milford) what time of the night or morning are the owl most active? Since it gets dark so early and light so late.  :)

Thanks for the defiance to conventional child-rearing wisdom. I couldn’t agree more..Conditioning while they’re young will help them to appreciate it as they grow. Nothing brings a winter smile like kids out throwing snow balls and waiting for the next dumping to build another snow fort. We play a sing-along in the car for our little guy that goes something like this…“I’m freezing, I’m freezing…Hope I don’t start sneezing…HA-CHOO! Mushy-slushy cold and wet. Snow suits and boots is it over yet?! HA-CHOO!”....I need to loose this CD between the seats.

One of my co-workers, whose home is downtown, told me he saw a coyote up in an apple tree picking frozen apples off branches.  Until then I had not realized what an omnivore coyotes are.

Amen!

The cold is invigorating.  I much prefer the deep cold, especially if it’s bright and sunny over hot humid weather.  One of my friends, who is Norwegian descent, agrees with this wholeheartedly.  He says, ‘survived another summer’, rather than survived the winter!