It’s just a short story. No novels yet–I gotta cut my teeth first.
Thanks again for all the details!
Just a quick note to add that handling pine leaves your hands a sticky mess that takes gasoline or acetone to remove. I don’t even bother cutting it up for firewood, as it doesn’t last long enough to make it worth the work. I’ve got lots of poplar (North Eastern name for aspen or cottonwood), maple, cherry, and ash to burn.
Here in southern Montana it’s pretty much all pine, so that’s where my experience is. Personally, I really like how easy it is to split, even when green. And when it’s dry and split you can start a fire by applying a match directly to the wood, without needing paper or tinder. Paper and tinder do make it easier to spread the fire and speed up the growth of it though so I still use it. I really like the smell of burning pine, but it can get quite stuffy if there’s not much ventilation or if an entire neighborhood is burning it.
Chopping pine is one of the few forms of manual labor that I truly enjoy.
When I was burning wood I preferred poplar: it is easier to light than oak and lasts longer than most other pines. A good oak log (5 - 8 lbs) on a well established coal bed will last all night with relatively low risk of popping while you sleep, I always hated leaving soft pine fires unattended for fear of finding the room ablaze.
If your charactor is buying wood than that is one thing, but if he has to cut the wood that’s quite another. IME there is an art to cutting wood, especially large hardwood logs, by hand. I used to entertain myself by splitting a few good logs in front of some “City Folk” and then letting them try. I still remember the dull thunk the axe made as it buried itself a couple of inches into the log and just stayed there leaving the chopper cussing and tugging to try to get it out. After several more of these failed attempts (or an even more humorous glancing blow that shaves off a sliver and sends the log sailing into the bushes) I would resume and split the logs with ease.
Ahh… Yeah… Good times.
I grew up with wood heat in Oregon. We had two woodpiles: one of softwood (typically fir) and one of hardwood (such as laurel, madrone, and chinquapin). When building a fire, we’d wad up a few sheets of newspaper as a base, then put a couple pieces of softwood and a piece of hardwood on top. Once the fire was burning well, we’d feed it only hardwood.
(Technically, we’d have four woodpiles. One of each type to burn that winter, and one drying for next winter.)