living in the woods and making stuff

We collected a lot of firewood this year.

My favorite structure to build is a beehive. I am not sure where this style of firewood stacking originated, but I first saw it in Brighton (IA…). There is a u-pick Christmas tree farm there and they have some very beautiful stacks of firewood.

The trick to building a beehive (in my experience) is to keep the logs tilting towards the center of the shape. I do this by laying small curved logs perpendicular to the rest of the stacked logs. This raises the outside edge, and seems to create a sturdy structure. The tops are formed by laying the logs closer and closer the center, until they meet. I don’t know how this would work on larger structures, but it worked well for my hives.

This is a circle house, inspired by some beautiful ancient ruins in New Mexico. I have plans somewhere down the line to put some sort of roof on it, but it might get used up first…

All the beehives and fences before the first snow. I can’t wait to see them covered!