Fire wood -- Our Laura Ingalls Wilder Forum

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Date Posted: 20:57:37 02/16/02 Sat
Author: Ann
Subject: Fire wood

It was cold and rainy here today, so I had a fire in the fireplace. Just keep it going for a few hours I had to keep adding log after log.
How much wood did a family have to go through in the winter in Laura's day? Where did they get wood on the prairie? I know in The Long Winter they made sticks out of hay, but that was because they ran out of wood and couldn't get out to get more, I think. So where did they *ususually* get wood?

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[> Not to mention.. -- delilah, 00:46:29 02/17/02 Sun

lumberjacking is very dangerous OR at least in those days. I'm not sure, but I would bet there is equipment that handles a lot of the cutting.

Poor Pa AND the men of those days. Can you imagine the chopping they did?

When I was a kid we had to chop wood. It was hard work. We would come home so tired and ached all over. There is one memory I have of the whole family going to the woods. My Dad would drive a truck load at a time home. I thought it would never end. The sun going down was welcomed that day.

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[> Re: Fire wood -- Laura, 10:46:27 02/17/02 Sun

I know that women on the wagon trains collected buffalo chips (i.e. buffalo dung) to use as fuel on the prairie. However, as the bufallo had been pretty much wiped out by the time the Ingalls family crossed the prairie, I don't know how much they would've used this.

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[> [> Re: Fire wood -- Ann, 18:44:42 02/17/02 Sun

Gee, buffalo chips must have produced a really aromatic fire, lol!

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[> Re: Fire wood -- Michelle, 18:42:27 03/18/02 Mon

Right after they moved into town in TLW, Pa made a comment about being glad he could get coal and supplies in town. He said that coal beat brushwood for giving steady heat.(p.73)

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[> [> Re: Fire wood -- Ann, 20:06:22 03/18/02 Mon

So they probably heated with the stove rather than a fireplace!

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