When you cut the willow, be sure to store it where it's difficult to retrieve. Look to burn it when it's as light as a feather, then it hangs in the log burner like a big lump of coal all evening.
I found a piece I cut 10 years ago at the bottom of the log store a few weeks ago, it brought back some memories for the gf & me. I helped her brother cut a huge willow down at her mother's. Sadly, both her brother and mother have passed, but it brought back happy memories of scoffing cheese scones and sausage rolls fresh out of her mother's oven on a Sunday morning