Summer soldiered on. My “To Do” list was left unchecked for a week or so. When I finally did check it, one item was “Check Firewood Supply.” I did check. I needed more wood. Sigh.
I asked myself, “How do I get the most wood for the least effort and energy? After all, I’d rather watch baseball or eat cookies. Ideally, I’d stack functions and do both simultaneously.
The answer came in the form of a mental cookie, a permaculture platitude named: “Stacking Functions.” On Permies.com, Jocelyn Campbell writes: “Stacking functions is doing (or building or designing) something that serves more than one function simultaneously.”
On the same post, Mike Hasl writes “It’s getting multiple uses out of one element of your design. Like a pergola that gives shade, has a gate to your garden, supports grapes and looks pretty.”
Killing two birds with one stone makes sense to every meat eater, but what if the ratio was seven to one? Systems engineer and Manager of the Student Organic Farm at Clemson University, Shawn Jadrnicek opines:
“Once the magic number of seven is breached, the design takes on a life of its own. For a component to perform seven functions it must be so connected to its environment that it takes on a new autonomous, lifelike quality. I refer to this quality as bio-integration…” The Bio-Integrated Farm, p. 4.
Okay, okay–but what the Funktion does stacking function have to do with firewood? In pursuit of an idea, I cruised a local backroad. Some local people bemoaned the damage caused by an ice storm this past winter. Many trees lost their tops or major limbs.
I observed that most damage was done to tree limbs that were in a weak position structurally, were members of a weak species, or were located without much tree peer support. Enter the cheapskate! I dunno how bio-integrated I am, but I could cruise a local backroad and look for “Stacking Function Firewood”.
I located downed maple and ash limbs. I cut them to fit in my truck.
I brought them home to cut, stack, and dry further. My one simple idea was in the running for Stacking Functions medals. “Stacking Function Firewood” indeed belongs on the bio-integration podium because:
- It was FREE for the price of gathering. The only thing taxing was my moderate paced labour.
- It built or maintained muscles outside of a fitness club membership; see above–my Fitness Club IS The Outside.
- It is composed of relatively high fuel value dense hardwood species.
- It removed obstacles or potentially dangerous snags like ones that might fall on hikers, livestock, drivers—or snow removal workers like me!
- The wood is already primed to dry: the tree limbs started to dry the minute the ice ripped them off of the trees. This maximizes heat value and minimizes the weight of moving them.
- The wood required no further splitting by a nasty hydraulic machine nor a heavy maul axe. Most limbs are small enough that they will mostly dry within one year of seasoning thus need not be split.
- Retrieving the wood fuel required a minimum of fossil fuel. The truck had a very short drive. The chainsaw is battery-powered, not gas-powered.
- The project was “time-stacked.” The gathering of fuel occured simultaneously with exercising domestic canines.
- The project provided fuel for winter warmth AND for a Blog Post!
