'When Winter asks what you did in Summer.."

One could be forgiven for thinking the Czechs are indeed the most obsessive nation under the Sun. Not only do they obsess about their beer and their mushrooms, but walk through any village, or indeed any small town, and you'll see piles and piles of chopped wood - and hear chainsaws and hand-choppers as you go. It seems that during Summer, houses get a second layer of outside walls as (more or less) neatly stacked firewood gets piled ever higher. Listen in to conversations and inevitably you overhear information about where the cheapest/best/free source of wood might be. It has ever been thus - the Czechs, whilst pretty clued up on the latest ecological thinking, basically aren't keen on paying to the multinationals for their heating. And indeed why should they, when they've always had their forests on the doorstep.
The other day I went to a hobby/gardening fair at Ceske Budejovice and guess where most of the queues were? By the latest wood-fired central heating boilers, and by the wood-fired cooking stoves. It was a hot day, in high 20Cs, but it is the high season for stacking up for the Winter. So the wood-clad houses look very cosy, and the layers of wood will provide not just heating in the Winter, but extra insulation too.