Down the road

The wood splitter is headed down the road, back home to the West Hill. For the last time of 2018.

This means, for the uninitiated, that the wood for the year is complete.

Or so we hope.

Every year, we think we have a better handle on what we will actually burn in the coming winter, and every year, we are wildly off the mark. In the spring of 2017, before the coming shoulder replacement, Scott cut what we firmly believed was enough wood for at least three winters. You know, in case that new joint didn’t wind up being so keen on the handling of a chainsaw for a while.

One winter has passed. You’ll note that he’s been cutting wood again. This is a testament to an excellent surgeon and a devoted do-er of the therapy, but also a reminder of our complete inability to estimate firewood.

We did still have a row or two out there this spring, but nowhere near another full year’s worth of firewood. Firewood–at least in the haphazard, scavenger-like way that we harvest and utilize it–is a bit of an enigma to us.

Scott split until well after dark last night. A headlamp was required. He moaned and groaned a lot in his sleep. But he is done, and unless the laws of combustion completely fall apart, there is enough dry wood out the window to see us through to springtime.

Time will tell.

For now, as frost licks the edges of the leaves, and we begin the great settling in, we’ll be warm and dry, and quite happy in front of our fire.

Contentment,
KJ