Since mornings will be relatively cool for a spell, I want to use that time to ease into prepping for winter. Yesterday’s chosen chore would have me working on the lower level.
As long as I was going that way, I took along what little combustible trash I had.
Yeah, I do love my burn barrel.
The reason I was there was to give my firewood stores a thorough once-over and tidy things up a bit. The first step would be to pull the (camo) tarps off the stacks.
We’re smack-dab in the middle of baby copperhead season right now, so I kept my eyes open. I was careful where I put my hands and feet. A woodpile, especially after a rain, is just the sort of place where I’d expect to encounter “yellowtails” (young copperheads), and I wasn’t in the mood for surprises.
I didn’t see any.
It’d be great to have an actual woodshed, but I don’t, so tarping has to do. A “cover or not” debate rages within the woodburning community, and I’m on Team Cover — only the top, though, still allowing air to flow through the stacks.
I was pleased yesterday to find my cordwood in great shape under the tarps. I had some re-setting to do — deer, along with the occasional bear, are prone to cuddling with my carefully stacked wood. Natural shifting can cause leans and collapses as well.
My wood yard holds a combination of what I’ve bought and what I brought in myself off The Mountain. It was great to see that the latter, oak and hickory and a little cedar, is seasoning nicely.
When I was done fiddling with the stacks, I threw the tarps back on and weighted them down with rocks (which aren’t hard to find ’round here).
The exercise wasn’t quite as much fun as felling, bucking and splitting, but it felt good to be back in the firewood game again. It’s all part of heating my home with wood, and taken together, that’s among the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.
Spending quality time in the wood yard yesterday got me thinking about a photo taken of me in January. This one:
I had no way of knowing then that the person who snapped that picture would abandon The Mountain, the dogs and me two weeks later, or that soon I’d be navigating my second divorce.
I wrote about the image the day after it was taken. Here’s what I said:
The setting is the stuff of (my) dreams — fresh-cut firewood stacked beside a dirt road, behind it cedars and oaks and hickories. There’s a sense of depth, a valley and a long, high ridge beyond. The sky is right out of a postcard.
And I’m actually in that scene.
I’m sitting on the tailgate of a full-size, V8-powered American pickup truck, the first I’ve owned in 30 years. It’s mid-winter. I’m wearing a heavy woolen shirt-jac in my preferred buffalo plaid, along with a warm knit stocking hat.
Far from navel-gazing, those are observations of aspirations fulfilled.
There’s more.
I see simplicity. I see work. I see Liberty, self-sufficiency and the independent American Life I’ve always imagined.
All in a photo.
If today turned out to be my last day on Earth — and I have no reason to believe that it is — then this likely would be the last image of me. I’d want you to see it. I’d want you to share it far and wide.
Send it to my friends, to everyone who’s ever known me, and include this message:
“He made it.”
That, my friends, is who I am, pictured and captioned. The situation I’m in today changes nothing about that.
I made it.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable