The Horrors of Burning Wood
From James Donahue’s Journal
After the ice storm cut our power for 14 days, we took my Brother-in-Law Wayne’s suggestion that we begin heating our home with wood. With Wayne’s help, we bought a big enough wood fired furnace to heat the entire house and got it installed alongside our oil burner in the basement. Looking back now I realize that we broke all of the rules because we vented it to the same chimney flu that the oil furnace was using. I think I knew I violated building codes at the time but reasoned that the oil furnace would never be working while we were burning wood.
Aaron and I began driving to the Port Hope farm and cutting trees that spring. We started with trees that were already down from wind storms or old age and then started thinning out the woods by taking older trees, making room for the saplings to grow. After a while we just began clear cutting roadways into the woods so we could back the truck right up to the wood we wanted to load. We would work long Saturdays, loading the pickup so full that it was almost dragging on the rear axle for the trips home.
After this, we unloaded the wood in a pile at the rear of the house, stacking the wood in piles between the fruit trees. At first, we cut thinner logs and tree limbs so we didn’t have to think of splitting them. But after a while, the larger trunks of the older hardwoods began piling up and we had to deal with them. We used a chain saw at first to cut them. Later, we bought a heavy maul and began learning to split logs. Eventually we bought some wedges to force some of the coarser logs to split. We were slowly learning the art and collecting the tools we needed to be true wood cutters. All week long, after getting home from work, I split logs and piled the wood in neat stacks, or cords.
As the project advanced, Aaron and I became wood fanatics. We jumped at chances to take the wood from old orchards that people wanted removed or cut up trees felled by the county road crews, and took trees knocked down by storms. We found other places closer to home where farmers let us cut trees, thus saving the long trips to Port Hope.
Somehow Doris and I got so enthusiastic about burning wood that we also found a wood burning cook stove that we could buy for a good price. We brought it home, put down a fireproof base, and set it up in our living room. There just happened to be a cap on the chimney on the wall there where the stove chimney pipe connected. I think we fired the stove up once in that house to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner. And it was delicious.
The wood furnace provided a steady and better heat that kept us all warm and toasty throughout the winter. We liked the heat, and I think I benefited from all of the exercise I got cutting the logs, splitting them, and feeding the furnace. We thought it was a win-win situation. But we quickly ran into trouble.
Jennifer and I both developed asthma symptoms after we began having wood heat. I didn’t get the connection at first and began talking to my doctor. He sent me to an allergist in Saginaw, who did a classic scratch test, found out my allergies and prepared a serum. I had to go in for shots about twice a week. Even though I got a local doctor to administer the shots, the whole thing got to be troublesome. Jennifer’s symptoms did not seem as severe as mine so she was not treated.
The doctor in Saginaw also prescribed a drug that may have been spelled: Ananophlin. I can’t find a reference to it to confirm the spelling. It was supposed to relieve my asthma symptoms, but after I took it I began having bloody stools. It was obvious that I was bleeding internally. I went to the doctor and was treated for an ulcer. I stopped taking the medicine and the symptoms went away. That is when I decided doctors don’t really know much about the human body.
When Aaron and I were cutting out some large old trees from a wood lot at the end of Hale Road, after getting permission from the land owner, Aaron toppled a large thick ash deep in the wood. It was late in the fall and all of the leaves had dropped. The tree had vines wrapped around it but we didn’t think much about that. We sawed it up and hauled those heavy logs out, many of them slung over our shoulders. It turned out that the vine was poison oak.
The effect didn’t hit us until the following morning when we were all in church. We were in the Marlette Baptist Church that day, and we started itching in the midst of the sermon. Parishioners around us might have thought we were squirming and twisting out of guilt, I am not sure. But Doris, Aaron and I were all getting hit at about the same time with a strange itchy rash. Doris had it on her hands and arms because she washed our clothes after we came in from the woods. Aaron and I both got the rash on our faces, necks, arms and chests.
Poison oak is a serious thing to get into. The rash got so bad we all had to go see Dr. Macka, our family doctor in Marlette on Monday. He gave us shots and sent us home. Aaron and Doris showed improvement in about a day or two, but my rash got worse. Soon my entire body was covered with the rash and swelling blisters. I went back to the doctor, fearing that it might be getting into my mouth and lungs. He put me right in the hospital and kept me there for a week.
During that week I was so heavily medicated that I couldn’t think clearly. It was odd because I would watch a television program and then have no memory of what I had just watched. I couldn’t follow a plot line in a drama. I hated the effect of that drug. It did calm down the itching, but I still itched. I was allowed a shower a day, but the nurses warned me not to shower in hot water or stay in the water too long. But I discovered that hot water….as hot as I could stand it…was an amazing tonic. It felt so extremely good as the water hit my itching skin that it was as if a thousand fingers were scratching my itch in a most wonderful way. It got so I could not wait for my shower. Sometimes, after change of shift, I started sneaking two showers. I never told the nurses what I had discovered, or what I was doing. I got better anyway.
Being in the hospital probably could kill some people that are really sick or have defective immune systems. Doris had the doctor put me on a 1,000 calorie a day diet while I was there, thinking that would be a good time to force me to lose a few pounds. I just about starved and blamed the hospital staff for not giving me enough to eat. Also the hospital staff seemed to have no respect for patients. Someone was constantly coming into my room to put towels and sheets away, to mop the floor at odd hours, or wake me up at various times in the night to take my temperature and blood pressure. There was constant noise in the hall. I tried closing my door but within minutes someone had it open again. By the time I got home, I had to take a few more days off from work just to recover from the hospital. I slept for about two days and when awake, I ate everything I could get my hands on.
The next thing that happened was that I had a big Maple tree roll back on me in the woods at Port Hope while I was sawing it up. Aaron and I were deep in the woods on my father’s farm. I saw the tree coming at me and turned to get away, but it dropped on my left leg, pinning me under it. I heard a snap and knew my leg was broken. Aaron pried the log off of me and helped me hobble on one leg to the truck. He was just old enough to be driving then although I am not sure he had a license yet. Aaron drove us back to Sandusky. We borrowed a set of crutches from a lady in the church we knew that had recently used them, and then went to see Dr. Macka in Marlette. He X-rayed my leg and it was broken right at the knee. He set the leg, put me in a cast from my ankle to my hip, and sent me home. I spent all that winter and part of the next spring living in that cast. After it was removed, the doctor said I could not put any weight on my leg until X-rays showed that my knee cap was completely healed. But I could drive my car with an automatic transmission so I went back to work. When at long last I was told that I could walk, I took one stop and fell on my face. The muscles in that leg had atrophied and I was unable to walk. It took weeks for me to tone up those leg muscles and walk. For a long time after I began walking I limped.
There was one incident during the period that I had that cast on that I vividly remember. I was subpoenaed into Circuit Court to give testimony in a criminal case that I had personally covered. The court was held on the third floor of that 100-year-old building and there were no elevators. I tried to get out of making the appearance but was unsuccessful. Thus I had to climb three sets of marble stairs, with two men holding me up, on crutches and one foot.
Overall, burning wood to heat our homes produced nice even heat, it got me in good physical shape, but it also came close to killing me. I would not recommend it as an alternative power source unless nothing else was available.
From James Donahue’s Journal
After the ice storm cut our power for 14 days, we took my Brother-in-Law Wayne’s suggestion that we begin heating our home with wood. With Wayne’s help, we bought a big enough wood fired furnace to heat the entire house and got it installed alongside our oil burner in the basement. Looking back now I realize that we broke all of the rules because we vented it to the same chimney flu that the oil furnace was using. I think I knew I violated building codes at the time but reasoned that the oil furnace would never be working while we were burning wood.
Aaron and I began driving to the Port Hope farm and cutting trees that spring. We started with trees that were already down from wind storms or old age and then started thinning out the woods by taking older trees, making room for the saplings to grow. After a while we just began clear cutting roadways into the woods so we could back the truck right up to the wood we wanted to load. We would work long Saturdays, loading the pickup so full that it was almost dragging on the rear axle for the trips home.
After this, we unloaded the wood in a pile at the rear of the house, stacking the wood in piles between the fruit trees. At first, we cut thinner logs and tree limbs so we didn’t have to think of splitting them. But after a while, the larger trunks of the older hardwoods began piling up and we had to deal with them. We used a chain saw at first to cut them. Later, we bought a heavy maul and began learning to split logs. Eventually we bought some wedges to force some of the coarser logs to split. We were slowly learning the art and collecting the tools we needed to be true wood cutters. All week long, after getting home from work, I split logs and piled the wood in neat stacks, or cords.
As the project advanced, Aaron and I became wood fanatics. We jumped at chances to take the wood from old orchards that people wanted removed or cut up trees felled by the county road crews, and took trees knocked down by storms. We found other places closer to home where farmers let us cut trees, thus saving the long trips to Port Hope.
Somehow Doris and I got so enthusiastic about burning wood that we also found a wood burning cook stove that we could buy for a good price. We brought it home, put down a fireproof base, and set it up in our living room. There just happened to be a cap on the chimney on the wall there where the stove chimney pipe connected. I think we fired the stove up once in that house to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner. And it was delicious.
The wood furnace provided a steady and better heat that kept us all warm and toasty throughout the winter. We liked the heat, and I think I benefited from all of the exercise I got cutting the logs, splitting them, and feeding the furnace. We thought it was a win-win situation. But we quickly ran into trouble.
Jennifer and I both developed asthma symptoms after we began having wood heat. I didn’t get the connection at first and began talking to my doctor. He sent me to an allergist in Saginaw, who did a classic scratch test, found out my allergies and prepared a serum. I had to go in for shots about twice a week. Even though I got a local doctor to administer the shots, the whole thing got to be troublesome. Jennifer’s symptoms did not seem as severe as mine so she was not treated.
The doctor in Saginaw also prescribed a drug that may have been spelled: Ananophlin. I can’t find a reference to it to confirm the spelling. It was supposed to relieve my asthma symptoms, but after I took it I began having bloody stools. It was obvious that I was bleeding internally. I went to the doctor and was treated for an ulcer. I stopped taking the medicine and the symptoms went away. That is when I decided doctors don’t really know much about the human body.
When Aaron and I were cutting out some large old trees from a wood lot at the end of Hale Road, after getting permission from the land owner, Aaron toppled a large thick ash deep in the wood. It was late in the fall and all of the leaves had dropped. The tree had vines wrapped around it but we didn’t think much about that. We sawed it up and hauled those heavy logs out, many of them slung over our shoulders. It turned out that the vine was poison oak.
The effect didn’t hit us until the following morning when we were all in church. We were in the Marlette Baptist Church that day, and we started itching in the midst of the sermon. Parishioners around us might have thought we were squirming and twisting out of guilt, I am not sure. But Doris, Aaron and I were all getting hit at about the same time with a strange itchy rash. Doris had it on her hands and arms because she washed our clothes after we came in from the woods. Aaron and I both got the rash on our faces, necks, arms and chests.
Poison oak is a serious thing to get into. The rash got so bad we all had to go see Dr. Macka, our family doctor in Marlette on Monday. He gave us shots and sent us home. Aaron and Doris showed improvement in about a day or two, but my rash got worse. Soon my entire body was covered with the rash and swelling blisters. I went back to the doctor, fearing that it might be getting into my mouth and lungs. He put me right in the hospital and kept me there for a week.
During that week I was so heavily medicated that I couldn’t think clearly. It was odd because I would watch a television program and then have no memory of what I had just watched. I couldn’t follow a plot line in a drama. I hated the effect of that drug. It did calm down the itching, but I still itched. I was allowed a shower a day, but the nurses warned me not to shower in hot water or stay in the water too long. But I discovered that hot water….as hot as I could stand it…was an amazing tonic. It felt so extremely good as the water hit my itching skin that it was as if a thousand fingers were scratching my itch in a most wonderful way. It got so I could not wait for my shower. Sometimes, after change of shift, I started sneaking two showers. I never told the nurses what I had discovered, or what I was doing. I got better anyway.
Being in the hospital probably could kill some people that are really sick or have defective immune systems. Doris had the doctor put me on a 1,000 calorie a day diet while I was there, thinking that would be a good time to force me to lose a few pounds. I just about starved and blamed the hospital staff for not giving me enough to eat. Also the hospital staff seemed to have no respect for patients. Someone was constantly coming into my room to put towels and sheets away, to mop the floor at odd hours, or wake me up at various times in the night to take my temperature and blood pressure. There was constant noise in the hall. I tried closing my door but within minutes someone had it open again. By the time I got home, I had to take a few more days off from work just to recover from the hospital. I slept for about two days and when awake, I ate everything I could get my hands on.
The next thing that happened was that I had a big Maple tree roll back on me in the woods at Port Hope while I was sawing it up. Aaron and I were deep in the woods on my father’s farm. I saw the tree coming at me and turned to get away, but it dropped on my left leg, pinning me under it. I heard a snap and knew my leg was broken. Aaron pried the log off of me and helped me hobble on one leg to the truck. He was just old enough to be driving then although I am not sure he had a license yet. Aaron drove us back to Sandusky. We borrowed a set of crutches from a lady in the church we knew that had recently used them, and then went to see Dr. Macka in Marlette. He X-rayed my leg and it was broken right at the knee. He set the leg, put me in a cast from my ankle to my hip, and sent me home. I spent all that winter and part of the next spring living in that cast. After it was removed, the doctor said I could not put any weight on my leg until X-rays showed that my knee cap was completely healed. But I could drive my car with an automatic transmission so I went back to work. When at long last I was told that I could walk, I took one stop and fell on my face. The muscles in that leg had atrophied and I was unable to walk. It took weeks for me to tone up those leg muscles and walk. For a long time after I began walking I limped.
There was one incident during the period that I had that cast on that I vividly remember. I was subpoenaed into Circuit Court to give testimony in a criminal case that I had personally covered. The court was held on the third floor of that 100-year-old building and there were no elevators. I tried to get out of making the appearance but was unsuccessful. Thus I had to climb three sets of marble stairs, with two men holding me up, on crutches and one foot.
Overall, burning wood to heat our homes produced nice even heat, it got me in good physical shape, but it also came close to killing me. I would not recommend it as an alternative power source unless nothing else was available.