Wood Fires

If you're thinking sentimentally of burning logs - as distinct from a big Yule log at Christmas time - and haven't done anything…

If you're thinking sentimentally of burning logs - as distinct from a big Yule log at Christmas time - and haven't done anything about it, you're probably too late. People come around, particularly in the suburbs of Dublin, offering cut logs about this time, but they're likely not to have been seasoned. And in spite of wise words in the old rhymes, there is no wood that can be burned successfully just after it is cut.

In an often-quoted rhyme, the last four lines read: "But ash logs, all smooth and grey/ Burn them green or old,/Buy up all that come your way,/They're worth their weight in gold." That's a good selling line but you might be disappointed if the ash has just been cut. No doubt you can blow flames from them after much use of firelighters and the bellows (you'll always have slaves among the children who, will cheerfully fight to get their turn at the bellows. They see it, as a great game. Of course, you can always throw on some turf briquettes.

A man known to this corner planted several hundred ash trees on his land about 20 or more years ago when one of the several oil crises were on us. He knew he wouldn't get a very quick return, but there was the combination of quick-growing qualities of the tree and the reputation it has for early, easy burning. He hasn't had to use it yet, for although he has central heating, he also keeps an open fire going.

He never had to buy in logs for, soon after he moved into the few acres, he had to have a big tree near the roadside taken down. It wasn't one of the recommended fireing varieties - a very old sycamore - but it had many half-dead branches and, anyway, along with some turf, did very well for the household for a year or two.

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Then as other parts were trimmed or cleared, somehow there was always enough burnable stuff of one sort or the other, and old enough to stand in well for the better kinds which we are regularly told, includes beech (yes, when kept at least for a year). Poplars that had to be taken down aren't mentioned in the rhyming advice, but two that had to be felled came into use a year or so after. Not the best, but good enough. The ash that was planted at the time of the oil crisis has been left to grow and bits here and there from other trees get you by. Hawthorn is great but too precious in the hedges to waste. Only an odd casualty of storm is used for burning.