Monday, besides being Labor Day and the start of meteorological autumn, was the first of the month, which meant that it was time for me to pay a round of bills. As I took care of business, it struck me that it’d be the last time I’d do that as a (legally) married man.
The final hearing is a little over three weeks off. If the county court docket runs on schedule, I’ll be (legally) divorced a month from now. I’ll also know whether or not Miss Smudge and I will be able to live out our days on The Mountain.
That remains my primary focus. I’m all-in.
Now a quick follow-up to a photo caption in yesterday’s post.
The former military reconnaissance pilots who founded Zekan-Robbins Company had a pretty savvy business plan. Among their tactics was selling small-town newspapers in rural America on the idea of running a reader-participation promotion — Zekan-Robbins would take a bunch of aerial photos and sell them to the paper, which would, in turn, get local businesses to sponsor a “Mystery Farm” feature.
When a farm photo was published, readers would submit their guesses (by mail) for a chance to win prizes offered by the sponsoring businesses.
The Evening Independent, Massillon’s daily newspaper, ran such a feature. In mid-January of 1955, this photo appeared on page 11:
Ten days later, the Independent revealed that this particular “Mystery Farm” belonged to my grandfather, and it published this image on page six:
Pictured are my grandparents, along with my oldest cousin feeding “Fern Queen,” who at the 1948 Ohio State Fair set a record for milk production by a Guernsey.
And speaking of records, the paper noted that an unprecedented 65 readers correctly identified the farm in the aerial photo. The first 11 won passes for movies showing at the Lincoln and Weslin theaters in downtown Massillon.
One more follow-up, this to what I wrote recently about being averse to the kind of risks taken by the late YouTuber Desert Drifter, aka Andrew Cross.
I wasn’t always that way. During the summer of my 21st year, for example, while living near Glacier Park, I trekked the backcountry like Desert Drifter did — always solo, often inadvisably considering the hazards.
It was worth it. I’d do it again if I could.
My fear of heights wasn’t the paralyzing force then that it became later, either. I had no climbing gear and no training, nor did I even have any informal mentoring in the discipline. But that didn’t stop me from venturing into some damned sketchy places.
I’m recalling one bright July afternoon when I pulled off of the Going-to-the-Sun Road at Lunch Creek (pictured above, not my photo), less than a mile east of the Continental Divide at Logan Pass. I threw on a small pack and set out upstream, intent on reaching the cirque (glacial bowl) in front of 9,200-foot Pollock Mountain.
I knew it’d be quite a scramble, but it turned out to be even more difficult than I expected. After scouting a few possible routes, frustrated that all were beyond my abilities, I sat down to rest and sip water from my canteen.
To my left, I saw movement — two mountain goats, an adult and a kid, two hundred yards or so away. I left my pack and decided to move to a better vantage point.
That’s when my right foot slipped.
I began sliding on the steep scree slope (think ball bearings) toward a sheer drop. If I couldn’t arrest my skid, I’d die.
Instinctively — and it had to be instinct, ’cause it sure wasn’t training — I rolled onto my belly and went spread-eagle. The increased braking surface slowed and eventually stopped my slide.
I don’t know how long I stayed in that spot, face-down in the scree, 20 feet from the edge, before I summoned the courage to move. Slowly, inch by painful inch and still on my belly, I started working my way back up to my pack.
That took three hours. I drove down off the Continental Divide and back to my cabin in the dark.
So yeah, there actually was a time when I embraced risks like that. Occasionally they scared me, but they didn’t scar me.
I’m better at 68 because I survived what I did at 21.
You can’t chop your papa up
Chad Mitchell Trio, “Lizzie Borden” (1961)
in Massachusetts,
not even if it’s planned as a surprise.
No, you can’t chop your papa up
in Massachusetts.
(You know how neighbors love to criticize.)
I’ve written a lot about firewood over the last couple of years, often talking about allowing it to “season” before burning. Folks who heat with wood know what that means.
For those who don’t, it’s simply a matter of letting the wood air-dry until its moisture content is between 20% and 22% (or less). Seasoned wood catches quicker, burns hotter and more efficiently, produces less smoke and is less likely to leave creosote in flue and chimney.
The process can take as little as several months or as long as two years. It all depends on the type of wood and when it was harvested (live or already dead, that is).
The eastern red cedar I’ve brought in takes about a year to be ready, I’ve found. Hickory requires a bit more time. Oak is stubborn, needing 18 months or longer before I feel good about burning it in my woodstove.
The big rounds in the photo below, some of them 22+ inches in diameter, came from an oak brought down by tornadic winds in May of 2024.
It was another seven or eight months before I bucked it and brought it back to the wood yard. Those rounds still need to be split, of course, and I’ll be doing that when the weather gets cooler, but they already show signs that seasoning is well underway.
To help illustrate what I mean, here’s what that wood looked like the week I cut it:
And this is what it looks like now:
Yes, the color has changed. But what I want you to notice are the cracks radiating from the heartwood toward the bark. Bucking the trunk into 18-inch rounds exposed more surface area to the air. As the wood dried, it also shrunk (and cracked).
Splitting will only accelerate the process. And the cracks will make splitting that much easier.
This oak is still nowhere near seasoned. I might consider burning wood like that in a fire pit, but these rounds are destined for the woodstove. I’ll split them and give them more time, then check on their progress toward the end of this winter.
My goal is 15% moisture content, and that may take ’til next winter. If I run short and need more wood this heating season, I’ll settle for anything under 20%.
I bought two loads of firewood from a local guy a couple of years ago.
“The dump trailer behind his Dodge pickup was piled with what he’d advertised as ‘seasoned’ wood,” I wrote at the time. “He gave me a chance to examine the load before I agreed to take it, and damned if he wasn’t right — every stick I picked up was light, responding with a satisfyingly hollow thunk when I banged them against each other.”
I wasn’t born knowing what that thunk sounds like or how to tell if a stick of wood is properly seasoned just by hefting it. It took me years to develop a feel for good cordwood, and I’m still working on it.
With that Country sense or without it, however, heating with wood requires knowing what’s dry enough and what isn’t. For the inexperienced and uninitiated, or if you’re just tedious like me, technology comes to our rescue.
I paid Amazon $23 (now priced at $30) for a cheap handheld moisture meter to validate my seat-of-the-pants evaluations, and it’s worked great. The device has two pointy probes on the business end — stab the probes into a piece of firewood and the meter, by passing mild electric current and measuring conductivity (resistance), calculates and displays moisture content.
To get the most useful readings with a meter, you’ll also need an ax, a hatchet or a kindling-splitting fixture. Grab a piece of cordwood that represents the stage of seasoning you want to evaluate and split it. Then probe the internal wood fibers, parallel to them, and take your measurement. (See the photo above.)
Don’t be lazy and stab the end grain. Don’t stab across the grain. Do split and meter several pieces of wood.
For most of us, utilities are (literally) a no-brainer. Flip a switch, push a button or open a tap and our desires are fulfilled. Wood heat is different — it requires both thought and effort.
That’s the way I like it.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable