Wood Collecting

Wood collecting for our fire is just another way for us to save some money.

Last year we spent almost $600 on having red gum delivered to our door in Melbourne.

I can remember when I was a small girl going out in the bush for a day as a family. Dad would fire up the chainsaw and us kids helped to fill up the trailer. Mum would have a packed lunch for us with sandwiches, cakes and there would be a thermos for a cuppa. We would arrive home with our trailer full of timber for the winter, tired after a big day out to a bowl of hot soup and buttered toast.

I looked back on those memories with fondness as I told my family this story.

My man never had that experience, he grew up in Sydney where the weather is a bit warmer and his father was not much of a DIY kind of guy. He says he would have liked to have had a dad like my dad was, who's attitude was "why pay someone else to do something that I can do myself".

So a few weeks ago, I researched where about's we were allowed to cut and collect timber. We packed sandwiches, muffins and a thermos and headed out bush.

The girls helped and played, Andy felt very manly with a big tool to play with, we saved ourselves a lot of money and we all had a great day out, but for me the best thing was we put to use again my dear departed fathers trailer. I like to think he'd be very happy that he's passed on some of his resourcefulness to his youngest daughter.