I have the great good fortune to wake up in a place where I can step out my front door on a December morning, turn left, take ten steps, look up and see this:
Why would I ever complain? I mean, about anything?
I slept in almost two-and-a-half hours yesterday — a huge bonus and a big surprise. The exhaustion is real, the rest welcome. That meant, however, that the woodstove had gone another two-and-a-half hours without tending, on a morning when the outside temp was 16°F.
Smudge’s business trip would wait. She sat patiently, tail wagging, while I got a new fire going. She understood.
Within a couple of hours, I had the needle pegged at the high end of the red zone.
Our cold cabin was a cozy home once again. Miss Smudge approved.
The rest of our daily drill continued in good order. The Heeler found her spot on the living room chair, and I covered her with a fleece blanket.
I paid mid-month bills. I cruised news headlines, learning that Rob Reiner and his wife had been murdered, allegedly by their 32-year-old son.
I put another log on the fire.
A skill, once practiced but long forgotten, rediscovered.
I had no reason to move firewood Monday and no burning desire (pardon the expression) for harvesting any, but I picked up my ax and headed down to the wood yard anyway. I felt like giving myself a workout.
When I heated my home with wood 40-some years ago, I split everything by hand with an eight-pound maul. A recent social-media post from Council Tool reminded me of a technique I employed back then to split the fattest rounds — it totally had slipped my mind, so I hadn’t used it at all on The Mountain.
My customary approach to splitting is to treat a round like a pizza pie. I identify a crack or a weak spot and strike until I halve it. Then I split each half into wedges, or whatever I need, or whatever the wood allows.
Big oak rounds don’t yield easily to that, especially to my overmatched ax. I’d forgotten that I could try striking near (and roughly parallel to) the edge, essentially peeling off slabs instead of slicing wedges.
So yesterday morning I gave that a shot. I worked my way around the outside toward the center of the round.
I’m not gonna to tell you that it’s easy, or even easier. What this technique does is make the unlikely possible. And accuracy is important.
I ended up processing a total of four red oak rounds late yesterday morning. I had a ball, and I got my workout in.
Best of all, I resurrected a skill learned decades ago, one that’ll help me do what I do here and now.
Trump reacted to the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife in a post to TruthSocial yesterday morning — maybe you’ve seen it. And if you have, regardless of your politics, it probably rankled you.
This:
Not exactly a boilerplate thoughts-and-prayers message from the Consoler-in-Chief, eh? It has a lot of people bothered.
I’m not one of those people.
Let me be clear here — that sort of posthumous fuck-you isn’t my style. Personally, I would’ve said nothing at all.
But I don’t begrudge Trump his choice. After all of the vitriol Reiner leveled at him, I respect the President for avoiding pretense.
As for those on the Left crying foul, they probably should sit down and pour themselves a steaming mug of STFU. These are the same ghouls who refused to condemn celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Now, I think everyone should take a deep breath and realize that it could’ve been worse.
I mean, it could’ve been DeNiro.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable