Nostalgia for the good old days is double-edged; on one side I get that warm help-your-neighbor glow and from the other side I get that icy strained-muscle-rather-stay-in-bed ache. I'd read about barn raisings and quilting bees. I believe in the ideal of neighbors joining together to finish a project is what this county should still stand for, though this past weekend strained my zeal.
I was volunteered to split and stack firewood. Notice the passive voice; this was not an active decision by me. I'm all for using firewood for heating in a responsible manner because wood is a renewable resource and with improving technology is becoming cleaner burning. The reason for the firewood project involved clean up of dead trees from pine beetle infestation. The trees came from my friend's lot in the mountains.
In two weekends, he'd piled enough blocks to make six cords of wood, imagine the floor space of my two-bedroom, one-bath home with living room, kitchen, dining room and sun porch covered with wood one block deep. The odds of my friend burning that much wood in one winter when he already had his winter's wood were unlikely. Therefore, the neighbors benefited.
I spent my weekend filling a wheelbarrow with split pine, dumping it at the new location and stacking it into squared off stacks. These pieces of wood should never match, like putting together a puzzle by dropping the pieces on a table, mashing them a few times with a rolling pin until they made a solid mat and calling the project a success.
My friend said he wouldn't do the project without me because of my stacking ability. Never again should I admit to experience of this sort. The temperature hovered at 40 degrees Fahrenheit all weekend. Basking in performing a good deed doesn't warm quite the same as backing up to a wood stove, but it does build character.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment