The Campfire Trail: The Tale of the Wood Box - February 17

February 17, 2025

Day 1,235 of the Adventure

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The Camp Run-Amuck wood box is a lowly member of the Campfire Trail family, but serves a vital role here. It stands sentinel just a step or two out the cabin's back door on the deck. Silently ready to provide it's much-needed, and appreciated service. Our wood box is not really a box, but certainly nowhere near a woodshed. It's something in between the two. Being as deeply in the woods as we are, and, relying upon firewood as our primary source of heat, a problem developed. In Southwest Missouri, a woodshed attracts critters that are not at all welcome near the cabin. Among them are all sorts of bugs along with the potential of a copperhead or two. Copperheads LOVE wood piles. To be honest, we've never encountered one anywhere near our woodshed, but we don't spend much time there any time other than late fall or winter. If they were there, they'd be gone into hibernation by then. Besides, we've never actually seen one at all except more than a year ago way down by the waterfall. Whether bugs or snakes, building the official woodshed over 100 yards from the cabin eliminates most of that worry. The next issue is...... Who wants to continually retrieve firewood from 100 yards away. We refuse to store wood in the cabin...... you know... bugs! So, the answer was an outside wood box. Now, the box in not really a box. It's more like a mini woodshed, or diet woodshed. Something that will hold about a weeks-worth of firewood for most of the winter, or 2-3 days-worth when it gets really cold. Like it will this week.

It's designed with latched doors that open from the deck side and the "tractor" side. We can unload a full tractor bucket load of wood in from the one side and retrieve it a piece at a time from the deck side. Once a week, or so, through the winter, we bring our supply of firewood from the woodshed to the wood box. It's another one of those slow, simple, methodical routines we perform here in the woods. The only creatures besides us that appreciate the wood box as much are the random wasps that will try to build a nest in it occasionally in the summer and the Carolina Wrens. Those Wrens, LOVE getting in it whenever the doors are left open. Whether in search of bugs, or nesting sites, they are relentless. We usually don't allow them time enough to build nests, but we don't mind at all if they sweep the structure for bugs as often as they like.

Today, it's still mid-February. Tomorrow, we are expecting a foot of snow and sub-zero temperatures. It's time to make sure the wood box is fully loaded and ready for duty.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “The way energy industry costs are going, I think we are on our way back to living on 10 acre lots filled with trees for firewood!” ― Steven Magee

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