There’s nothing like wood heat for my taste. But if the wood isn’t right, well, it’s another story altogether. Then there’s real potential for problems, which is my current predicament, quite annoying.

I’ve just brushed off from a trip to the woodshed, a place where I’ve spent far too much time lately, trying to make the best of a bad situation. I received two loads of bad oak, red and white, knobby, large and wet, too large and too wet to burn, too knotty to split, nightmarish. And even when you get it burning, if you choose to call the dull, glowing smolder a burn, the heat value is poor at best, even with the damper open wide.

From what I gather, this problem is not unique to me. It appears there was a shortage of good cordwood this winter, given the increased demand stimulated by a rush of wood-stove purchases over the summer. When speculators predicted heating oil would climb to more than five bucks a gallon, concerned folks took measures to find money-saving solutions. Thus the run on wood stoves. The problem was that this was the wrong year for that. Last winter’s deep snows kept cordwood suppliers out of the woods between mid-December and mid-February, when trees are traditionally felled, cut and split for the fall market. The inaccessibility factor resulted in a shortage of seasoned hardwood that couldn’t meet the demand, thus a creosote debacle for area chimneys.

Much of the wood sold this fall was either green, wet or both, a problem for anyone trying to heat with it. So all the neophytes heating with their first wood stoves had to be wondering why people so love wood heat, nothing short of a chilly hassle when burning the stuff delivered to me in November from the West Whately woods. What they probably don’t realize is that this same useless wood would have been excellent next winter, whatever good that does at the present time, steam blowing from our ears.

”You say you bought that from a friend?” chortled Blue Sky, owner of Colrain Tree Service, upon delivering a load of black locust and assessing the quality of a large, wet oak mound in my woodshed. ”What kind of friends you got, anyway?”

All I can say is thank the heavens for Blue Sky, my neighbor and friend from the wilds of East Colrain. He’s alternative indeed, just how I like them, and ethical to his country core. Yeah, it’s true he was the beneficiary of my first-ever $200-plus purchase of cord wood. It happened this year. But all I can say in his defense is that at least his wood burns hot and effortlessly. Just toss a chunk atop a bed of hot embers and — bingo! — savor the toasty delight. Not so with the other stuff, about which I had immediate suspicions, as soon as I learned the guy selling it intended to split tops that had been down for two years and deliver it the same day. Never good news.

I told him to drop off a load and I’d see how it burned before I accepted more; said I’d had problems with oak before, that it’s great when seasoned properly, useless when wet. I didn’t want to get stuck with more than one load that wouldn’t burn. But that’s exactly what I got, three cords of unburnable oak, wood that has made a bad winter worse. The minute I handled it, tidying-up the pile he left in my backyard, I knew it wasn’t right, wet and weighty. He told me it would be OK if I left it out in the air for a while. I was skeptical, well aware that cordwood doesn’t season after October, especially oak. Well, my instinct was right, and I regret to admit there were no miracles at 817 Colrain Road.

I could have gotten by with five cords of Blue Sky’s good stuff and one load of the bad. But it was that second bad load that killed me, the one I didn’t want, the one I didn’t even know had been delivered until returning home from bird hunting and being asked by my wife where the wood in the backyard came from. I’ve been battling it ever since, trying to mix it in with the first two loads of Blue Sky’s seasoned stuff, and the wonderful two loads of black locust he later dumped to top the bad with good. Hail, hail Blue Sky, a businessman with a conscience, heart of gold. The man understands wood and wood heat. The stuff he delivers is split to specified length, not too large, burns hot, produces no creosote. And take it to the bank: He dumps an honest load, no fuzzy math from East Colrain.

A rule of thumb with oak cordwood is that it takes two years to season. You can get away with a year split and seasoned if it isn’t green when split, but you’re still better off, even with such a load, to give it two years. Oak is grainy and absorbent, soaking up water like a sponge, even down and in the round. For this reason, it needs time to dry after it’s split, much more time than rock maple, black or yellow birch, beech, cherry and hickory, our most common native firewoods, all of which season sufficiently in a year or less. If you’re lucky enough to find apple or walnut or elm, they’re all good but difficult to find for heating. White ash and black locust are also good, and convenient in a pinch because they burn green and season quickly. Drop any of the aforementioned woods except oak during the dead of winter, before the sugar bush flows, while trees’ water still resides in the base, and it’s perfect for fall if split. Not so with oak, which must be split, left out in the air, both ends open, covered on top, if you plan on producing acceptable BTUs.

I discovered the wonders of locust this year, at Blue Sky’s suggestion. Even he’ll admit it’s not as good as hickory, yet not far behind; and who wants to harvest hickory, anyway, our aristocratic indigenous nut tree? Not so with locust, considered non-native invasive, worthy of thinning, ideal for cordwood, desirable for fence posts because it doesn’t rot. It burns hot green, hotter still when split and seasoned for six months, or harvested standing dead. It throws intense heat, and is equally good for the fireplace. Although I’m not certain about the non-native designation, locust is indeed invasive, and landowners like to get rid of it, favoring the more traditional New England hardwoods to populate their wood lots.

I thought the two cords of locust I bought just before Christmas would get me through my wet-oak issues. I was wrong. Even with additional work, it’s going down to the wire. I tried to get through it at first by filling the bottom half of my stove-side cradle with the wet stuff, hoping the hot locust heat would drive the moisture out and improve the combustibility. It helped slightly but took too long, and now I’m almost out of locust with a mound of damp, smelly oak staring me in the face, annoying me daily. So I’ve taken to splitting the oak small daily, so that it will dry faster stove-side. But that requires work, not to mention a sufficient supply of seasoned wood that’ll burn hot enough to dry the small oak wedges quickly.

Luckily, while searching for the best oak chunks to split this week, I walked to the back of my dense wood pile and, to my euphoria, discovered a honey hole of seasoned stuff that had been buried. I threw much of it out to the front of the pile and will try to stretch it and the locust as far as I can while continuing to split oak a little each day, anger emanating from each thud on my ancient hemlock chopping block. Hopefully, this system will carry me to lilac season without purchasing more dry stuff. We’ll see. It’ll be close.

In the meantime, you’ll find me splitting, piling, sweating, brushing debris from my shirt, and cussing a blue streak under my breath daily. I guess what bothers me most is that my problems came to me directly from Whately, the place where my Sanderson roots lie deep.

All for a buck.

Sold, American!

Taken for a ride.