The birds are quiet on the summer evening as the truck that just dumped our winter’s firewood rumbles back up the driveway. Gazing at the formidable jumble, one contemplates just how much this operation has changed over the years.

When my father was a young man, he and Oscar, the hired man, spent many a winter day in the farm’s woodlot. After the trees were felled, the logs were hauled to the farmstead with the horse and a block sleigh, the forerunner of today’s skidders. So far, my only expenditure of energy has been lifting a finger to dial the telephone. My father and Oscar still had to cut the logs to stove-length pieces and split those again and again to facilitate handling and drying. My wood is already cut into stove lengths, split and dried so that it is ready to burn.

In my father’s youth, wood was stored in the aptly named “woodhouse” which was a section of the farmhouse, immediately off the kitchen. In Maine, where there were a lot of connected farmsteads, it was part of the “Big house, little house, backhouse, barn,” in the children’s chant that dates back to the 1800s. Storing the wood in there was an art, if not a science.

The predominant breed of tree that found its way to my grandfather’s woodshed was beech with probably a little sugar maple mixed in. Piled off in a corner at the front of the main stack was some cedar kindling used to start fires. In another corner was a stack of birch that created the quick, hot fire Grandma needed to brown biscuits. In another easily accessible spot lay large chunks that had defied further splitting but would give great heat when burned on a subzero evening.

Today, we build houses with attached garages, not woodsheds. Few of us have the luxury of an attached “little house” in which to stack our winter’s heat. That begs the question of what to do with it since wet, snowy, frozen wood doesn’t burn worth a darn. It can also lead to domestic disputes that may start with “You aren’t going to leave that piled there all winter, are you?”

Some of us would be happy to leave it as it came off the truck. If we cover it with one of those ubiquitous blue tarps, we’ve done our bit. Others insist on piling it in neat stacks by the back door before covering it with a tarp or system of scrap wood to shield it from the weather.

It should be pointed out that stacking too close to the house could be dangerous. Should it accidentally catch fire, two or three cords of dry hardwood stacked next to your back door is more than enough to nicely roast a bull elephant, or burn the house down. The search for a replacement of the old woodshed has led us to some interesting wood storage arrangements.

Ron Logan of Orono has built five small sheds to store the firewood that he harvests from his own woodlot. Open to the weather save for a sturdy roof, each is neatly numbered to indicate which wood is ready to burn next. He stores hardwood in the largest and the softwood that he burns, on the shoulders of the winter, is stored in smaller sheds spread about his back yard. Each tidy shed was built without plans from materials on hand or, like the roofing on one, rescued from a roadside pile.

Contrast that simplicity with the products of the Jamaica Cottage Shop in Vermont. Those folks will deliver a beautiful, fully constructed 6-foot-by-12-foot shed to your door for about $1,500 plus $400 to $500 for shipping. With a two-cord capacity, it’s more expensive than the blue tarps but looks a whole lot better. It also adds another stop when you give admiring visitors a tour of your property. The Cottage Shop will sell you a building in any stage, from the plans to the completed shed. At this point the purest may say, “Hey I looked at my neighbor’s, who needs plans?”

Ken Allen, also of Orono, constructed a fine looking wood storage building. Although more finished and visually attractive than Logan’s, he found that he didn’t add enough muscle to the floor joists. The floor could not stand the weight and the shed is not currently being used for storing wood. When you think about it, that is probably why a lot of the woodsheds of old had dirt floors.

Whichever storage method you choose, moving those chunks around burns plenty of calories and that first sniff of wood smoke on a chill fall night makes it all worthwhile.

Chuck Veeder can be reached at veederc@surfbest.net.