The trees on our property is a mixture of spruce and deciduous trees like birch, European ash, and common aspen. Spruce, like the Norway spruce and Scots pine are cultivated for forestry. Forestry is a big business in Sweden and for large property owners, trees are money.
Why We Chose to Keep our Trees
When we bought the farm, our neighbour suggested we should cut down the forest to get more sun around the house in the evening. With this in mind we had a company assess the value of our trees. but in the end, we decided we were better off keeping the trees.
We didn’t want to be surrounded by clear-cut forests for years to come. Firstly, we probably won’t have time enough to watch a new generation of trees mature. Secondly, we love being surrounded by trees. Above all, now that the neighbour with forests bordering our property has cut down most of his trees, we are really thankful we kept our trees standing.
Trees are Beautiful
Our small forests frame in our fields beautifully and we love the sight of tall trees. Thinking ahead, we want to establish a glamping business, and keeping the trees will be better for attracting visitors. Besides, trees are also better for wildlife too.
How do we get firewood?
On the other hand, we heat our house with wood. Wood burning furnaces are common in Sweden, particularly on the countryside. The wood-burner heats water that circulates to radiators around the house, as well as the water we use for showers and washing. Provided that, we need a substantial amount of firewood every year.
In any case, our forests are not large enough to supply us with a sufficient amount of firewood. Luckily, we have neighbours with large forests and not time or energy to maintain them. Frank has asked around and we now have access to several plots where we can take down trees for firewood.
With all this in mind, obtaining fire wood is a suitable winter activity. Before Christmas, Frank went and cut down several trees on a plot not too far from our farm. That was the first stage in a series of procedures. Following that, we have to cut the logs to size, transport them to the farm before cleaving the logs into pieces that can be stacked to dry.
In the end, the wood we work with this year, won’t be used before next year, or even the year thereafter. So, making fire wood is a long and slow process. But, it helps keep us warm as well as fit.
A bi-product of cutting down trees for firewood is that we also get a lot more wood chips
