Cut up more elm today with the chainsaw, split it, and stacked it in the greenhouse. It should dry pretty good between now and late next winter in the hot greenhouse (assuming we don’t get flooded again). That will be on the bottom of the woodpile, so we’ll burn a lot of oak before we get to that.
There are people who will tell you that you can’t split elm. A friend of mine, when I told him I split up some elm, told me that if I split it, it couldn’t be elm. But I’ve found that if you cut it into 12″ to 15″ pieces, you can split it with a splitting maul. Not as easily as you can split oak, but it can be done.
Cutting it into short pieces of course means that you’re putting more time, personal energy, and fossil fuel into poor-quality firewood, but what am I going to do, just leave it on the ground and let it rot? That doesn’t seem right either. I do plan to cut the smaller-diameter pieces by hand as much as possible, which removes the additional fossil fuel from the equation.
I haven’t decided if we’re going to buy more firewood this summer or not. We have at least 1½ cords left over from last summer’s purchase, so we could probably get through next winter with what we’ve got. On the other hand, given the situation in the world, I hate to not have some extra stashed away.
I really need to keep my eye on Craig’s List for free or cheap firewood.
Ending and Beginning 
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