Deb has my truck today.
Her Jeep, its wobble having been looked at now twice, is back in the shop for a third round. She dropped it off yesterday at lunch. I scooped her up and drove her back to work, then returned to pick her up at the end of the day.
Since I really don’t need to go anywhere today, it made sense for her to “borrow” the Silverado. One round-trip instead of two.
It was a good morning for me to follow through on work I began yesterday. I brought the bucked chinquapin oak down from where I’d piled it, loaded it into the bed of the Ranger and hauled it to my wood yard. There I split the large pieces and tossed them to one side.
I did the same with the black locust.
Only two very naughty (particularly knotty) chunks refused to yield to the Fiskars and me. The rest of it, being fresh-cut and green, was a challenge, stringy as hell. Since I didn’t have much to process today, the difficulty didn’t bother me.
After I’d stacked it all, I stepped back and gauged what I’d added to our supply. Two days’ worth? Maybe only one bitter-cold day of heating the cabin?
I won’t have the answer for 18 months, perhaps two years or longer. The real work, however, is done.
“Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection. I love to have mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me of my pleasing work. I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice — once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat.”
Henry David Thoreau
And there’s the thing — the work. Until and unless a person invests time and sweat in the task of bringing in wood to keep a house warm during the winter months, there’s no explaining it. Like baling hay, planting field crops and other Country chores, it must be experienced to be understood.
Seldom is gratification immediate. Rewards are distant, and often they’re uncertain. In the moment, the work itself has to be enough.
I looked again at that small stack of hardwood. I thought back on the effort it took to produce it, and I smiled.
The work is the reward.
If you don’t understand that, I truly hope that someday you will. There’s no feeling quite like it.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB