Ten top tips for stacking wood

As an aside, I am an amateur in the world of wood stacking, but think these gems gleaned in the first hours and days of the art are nonetheless useful.

1. Make sure the cross-built end stacks, which will be the bookends to your wood stack, are stable. This may be slow and laborious, but it is essential that they don’t fall down.
2. Hob nail boots are a good idea, if you don’t want your feet to be crushed by a falling log.
3. Hob nail boots that are three sizes too big are impractical and dangerous as they impede your rapid retreat in the face of the aforementioned falling log. Trying to paint your own boots red and gold, then not being able to wear them because the red paint won’t dry, is an absurd situation. Especially if you then have to borrow someone else’s boots, whose feet are three sizes bigger than yours.
4. Make sure you clear the small branches away as you go, leaving your getaway path clear. Logs fall faster than you might think, and stumbling backwards over a litter of twiggy obstacles is hazardous. All the more so in size 9 hob-nail wellies.
5. If you can lift the smaller branches high up, do so. Put the biggest heaviest logs at the bottom, so you don’t have to lift them far. This seems obvious, but I personally didn’t think of it soon enough.
6. A well constructed log pile can be a thing of great beauty and an aesthetic achievement. My own attempt is neither of the above, but I aspire to greater mastery of the skills involved.  Stand back, observe, respect the lines.
7. As with all heavy lifting, bend your knees as you lift, otherwise your back will pagger within minutes.
8. As with childbirth, the effort is lessened if you breathe out through your mouth (a silent whistle) as you force. It’s easier, better for your pelvic floor and gives you a pleasing yogic feeling. You look a bit daft, but you probably won’t have spectators.
9. Avoid having spectators. Wood stacking is hard work and all passersby should either take off their jacket and help, or else make a complimentary comment and move along. Exceptions can and should be made for under-threes.
10. Set yourself small targets. Looking at the 10 ton pile of higgledy piggledy logs that you have to stack singlehandedly will only get you down. Particularly if you have a maximum of 40 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week, available for wood stacking. And a one year old. I’d like to say that 10 tons is a gross exaggeration, but alas, it is not.