Our fast paced society today has resulted in illness instead of wellness, stress instead of relaxation, dis-ease instead of ease. People have forgotten the lessons that evolution teachines: our bodies know how to find the path to better health.

The body naturally seeks a state of balance, known as homeostasis, in which all systems are self-regulating. These systems can be disrupted by factors beyond our control, such as accidents, major world events such as warfare or lack of food, or diseases for which there is no known cure, such as bubonic plague, or some forms of cancer. And of course, the aging process gradually breaks down the body’s homeostasis and brings about imbalances through wear and tear.

However, most diseases in modern society are preventable. They are caused by controllable factors such as poor diet, sedentary activity such as computer use and television watching, and stress. Together, these three factors account for a whole host of imbalances in the body, leading to illnesses that steadfastly resist diagnosis by conventional medicine. I like to call them the “itises”: arthritis, diabetes mellitus, psoriasis, gingivitis, and the list goes on and on. Obesity is a disease that falls into this category, and some forms of cancer may be preventable through methods such as smoking cessation and dietary changes. Together, these “itises” make up what’s collectively known as the diseases of civilization, because they were relatively unknown until we adopted agriculture and technology.

Unlike aging, war, and accidents, we can address these conditions through lifestyle changes intended to mimic the way we evolved to eat, move, and think. The Paleo Diet comes closest to our natural, evolutionary state, and has an enthusiastic following. At Healing 101, you can learn more about eating habits, exercise methods, and health approaches to help you live your life free of “itises” and experience homeostasis and optimal health.

Our family gets a lot of satisfaction from building a nice, solid woodpile and knowing that it will keep us warm all winter. Our 10 acres of wooded property produces a lot of good hardwood fuel, but since we don’t have much free time, we also buy a couple of cords each year to supplement what we cut on our own. Over the years we’ve learned some things about making firewood that might help you if you’re heating with wood or thinking of doing so.

One thing we’ve learned from the old-timers is that firewood isn’t something you can gather at the last minute. We get our firewood on a rolling cycle that allows us to season it for a year before we actually burn it. Our woodshed is big enough to hold about a year and a half worth of fuel. It has doors on each end that we leave open in all but the worst weather so the wood can get plenty of air and dry out properly. We bring in fresh firewood through the door on one end and take out the seasoned wood through the door on the other end to burn in our wood stove.

Green firewood is amazingly easy to split. We stopped splitting by hand with a maul years ago, but even with our powerful hydraulic wood splitter, the job goes faster when we work with green wood. Splitting also makes the seasoning process go faster since more surface area of the log is exposed. Green, unsplit wood sells for less money than seasoned, split wood, which has allowed our splitter to pay for itself within a few years of purchasing it.

You’ve probably heard that hardwood is the best and softwood is to be avoided. This isn’t necessarily true. A pound of firewood puts out more or less the same amount of heat energy when it burns, no matter what the species. The only difference between hardwood and softwood is that hardwood weighs more, so its energy is more concentrated. Therefore, it takes up less room in your woodshed than softwood.

Don’t get me wrong—we love hardwood as a fuel, and our woodlot has so much deadfall that we have more hardwood than we can use. But if we didn’t have this resource, we would have some reservations about burning only hardwood, because hardwood is such a valuable commodity for other, more long-lasting uses. These include woodworking, lumber, and art. Obviously, your choice on this issue will depend on your local conditions. We’ve chosen to harvest our wood supply in a way that’s sustainable and puts more back into the earth than we take away.

Shopping for firewood requires a “buyer beware” attitude. Most woodcutters are honest folks, but not all of them (just like people in general). We’ve learned to take an attitude of, “trust but verify,” and check out what’s in the load of wood we’re buying. We don’t mind buying softwood, but since we need so much of it to produce the same amount of heat as hardwood, we expect to pay less for a cord composed primarily of softwood.

Speaking of cords, you might want to know how big one is. A “full cord” is four feet tall by four feet wide by eight feet deep. A “face cord” is already cut into stove lengths, usually 16 inches or so, stacked in the traditional four by four foot dimension. It takes us two trips to haul a face cord home in the bed of our full size pickup. The loads are heavy, and we find we have to slow down to 45 mph to make the trips safely.