Easy firewood storage

When I was a kid my Dad used to rent the Charltons' cottage for 2 weeks every summer. I got some of my best scars there. Like the one in the middle of my shin where I fell onto a sharp rock and dented the bone. The bone! I still feel proud when I think back to that day.

My shin bled so much that my Mum made me a grilled cheese sandwich and let me lie in the top bunk reading Richie Rich comics with my leg elevated on a pillow.

But the pillow didn't feel high enough to me, so I got my brother to bring me some rope and I lashed my ankle to a rafter. That mostly stopped the bleeding, plus after I got bored with comics I figured out a way to do aerial somersaults hanging from one ankle.

Blood and cottages just go together. Between leeches, black fly bites, building projects and general falling down, there's potential for blood in every cottage day. Oh, and burns. I almost forgot burns. Campfires, fireworks, lighters, barbecues, kerosene lanterns, Coleman stoves, propane lamps. The best way to tell you had a great weekend at the cottage is that there's no hair left on your arms.

Pyros R Us

If you're lucky enough to have a beach fire-ring or outdoor fire-pit, you may know the joy of splitting and stacking firewood till your loins burn.

You may also know the dismay of damp, mouldy wood that's improperly seasoned or, as the professionals say, swamp-cured.

Green wood contains up to 45% water. It smokes like mad and never gets much hotter than burning loins. If your firewood is well-seasoned it has 20% moisture content, lights easily, burns cleanly and produces lots of heat. A well-seasoned log has darkened ends with visible cracks and splits. It smells dry and crisp, not rotten and bog-like.

Even well-seasoned firewood can spoil if it's stored on the ground where it wicks moisture and gets as soggy as a toddler's thumb.

You can make a dead easy, reasonably cheap firewood storage rack using two-by-four lumber and Allan block, which is a hollow, pre-cast concrete product that offers a stable, base for a firewood rack.

If you set your rack in a sunny, breezy location, even green wood will cure as fast as you can memorize the first thousand digits of pi, or six months, whichever comes first.

Tools and Materials

• Nine 8-foot spruce 2" x 4" boards
• Lots of 3" rust-resistant screws
• 4 Allan blocks
• Drill
• Saw

Steps

1. Make four 'posts' - Cut four of the 8-foot boards in half. "Sister" the two halves of each board together by driving 4 screws into the boards in a zigzag pattern along the 4-foot length of the paired boards.
2. Place two pairs of Allan blocks about 8 feet apart, the pairs separated by a few inches between them. (You'll adjust the dimensions as you build the rack in place, so don't worry about accuracy yet. Or ever, really. We're not building a launch pad here. Besides, a little wonkiness is just proof of enthusiasm.)
3. Drop one 'post' into the hollow core of each Allan block. You may have to use a sledgehammer to persuade the posts to drop fully into the holes.
4. Install the 'floor' by running four 8-foot 2" x 4" boards between the two ends, positioning the boards 'on edge' and screwing them to the posts. Placing the boards on edge gives the floor of your rack the strength to carry a huge amount of firewood. (If you were to place the boards broad side up, they wouldn't offer enough strength and you'd have a saggy stack, which is always disappointing.)
5. At each end of the rack, fasten a horizontal 18-inch board along the bottom outside edge to tie together the ends of the 8-foot boards.
6. Fasten one 15" horizontal board (broad side up) to tie the tops of the two posts together at each end.
7. Load your rack with firewood and get ready for scary ghost stories told in the best way ever invented: by firelight.