Also some of this is junk wood. I got a few lengths of cottonwood from a neighbor, which splits easily but burns indifferently and leaves a ton of ash. I also blocked up a fallen birch behind the treehouse, and I can’t use much of that. I should learn not to burn birch around here unless I felled it myself, 20 minutes ago. It rots fast. I dropped one piece on the railroad-tie stairs leading down to  the garden and it burst like an egg. When it dries, the birch will be okay. It will burn fast and hot, like cardboard.

But a lot of this is good wood. The middle section is mostly that lodgepole pine I dropped this spring, and there’s lots of fir and tamarack from around the property. If I can ever get my trailer hitch figured out I’d like to head up into the hills this summer and bring some more down. Oh well, I’ll do that when I have time. (Joke. Funny. Laugh.)

More than heat, more even than security, this woodpile is my entertainment. Some people get their thrills from video games or cooking or watching the idiot box. For me, this is my fun and games. Nothing beats a good sharp chain saw sinking down through a log, or the satisfaction of a big hulking block of wood jumping in half under my splitting maul. It’s hard to beat the feeling of security I feel watching my firewood dry out and crack in the summer sun, or smell it settle into the dry woodshed in the fall. And there’s just no better feeling than to go out to hang laundry and find that one third of your Great Wall of Firewood has fallen over.

That happened last Saturday. Cool, huh? I’m still learning.

(I’m posting today because I’ll be out on Friday. Jess and I are taking the kids to the coast.)

chipmunk (chip’ munk) n. Any of several small striped terrestrial squirrels of the genera Tamias and Eutamias; has cheek pouches and a light and dark stripe running down the body.

That’s for everybody else, even ourselves before this year. Kids at the campground, hikers in the woods; city kids sighting one on TV. Here’s how it goes at our house:

chipmunk (chip’ munk) n. Any of several bazillion small greenhouse & garden-dwelling pests of the genera Voracious and Devious; has a mouth with a small striped body attached.

Jess first noticed them when her cucumber plants started disappearing in the greenhouse. Mice? Squirrels? Openings are too small for skunks or coons. Small planting cups were spilled on the shelves. Her kale plants started disappearing. She sprayed her plants with cayenne pepper, but a daily deluge of rain washed it off the outdoor plants without affecting the culprits. Alarmed, she set out rat poison in the greenhouse and started keeping watch.

Then she noticed a family of chipmunks that had moved in to the woodpile behind the greenhouse. She started seeing chipmunks inside the greenhouse, and when she found that some of the tomato plants she had raised from seed nibbled through the stem, that was it. She called out the artillery.

She doesn’t like firing my .357 magnum, so she posted me as sniper. The little buggers would stand up on top of the wood pile and wait for me to fire. I emptied the revolver of six .38 shells and hit —none. Or if I did hit any, they were quickly replaced by another rodent, sitting atop the woodpile with his paws in his ears, calling “Nyah nyah nyah.”

Neighbor Tim heard all the ruckus and came up with his .22. (That’s a much better rodent gun, but we can’t afford anything right now. That’s why losing our garden plants is a big deal.) I felt better when Tim spent the rest of the evening and part of the next morning up at our garden and hit —two.

Jessica’s plan worked better. She filled a 5-gallon bucket half full of water, sprinkling birdseed on top so that it looked solid. Then she leaned a piece of scrap wood up as a ramp to the bucket, and smeared the wood with peanut butter and birdseed. The rodents climb up the ramp, fall in and drown. That works lots better, and peanut butter is cheaper than bullets.

Oh, the cute little chipmunks! That’s how we felt until they started eating our food supply. They can be as cute as they want—elsewhere. They won’t starve; the woods are full of chipmunk food. There’s no reason to eat the people food when we can hardly afford to feed ourselves; and you can’t reason with rodents.

And that’s just the commercials.

Meanwhile, we’ve had to discontinue our internet connection via Verizon Wireless. It worked fine to start with, but we lost the signal for a day or two and when I was finally able to reconnect my connection was sssssssssslllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooowwwww, even slower than our dial up. And that’s saying something. (How slow is our dial up? You could eat dinner while a page was loading.)

So we’ve succombed to satellite internet by WildBlue. (They gave us a better deal than their competitor.)It’s the only option for us out here. Satellite is a unique technology: it seems to be nearly universally despised (cost, speed, unreliability), but out here nearly universally used. Now I know why.

And as for all the ickiness I so gleefully condemned above? Isn’t the Internet more slimy than television? Three answers: 1) Not possible. 2) We strictly govern our kids’ use, Jess only uses Gmail and Facebook, and I never have time for Internet anyway. 3) We use NetNanny.

FOLLOW the HARROWING SAGA of the FLUKINGIJIGiGJER’S CHICKENS as they RAISE SEVEN CHICKS to ADULTHOOD. WILL THEY SURVIVE? WHAT about the FLOCK of BIZARRE DUCKS SPOTTED among PEACEFUL NEIGHBORHOOD HENS? WHY did the HENS SUDDENLY START LAYING EGGS? LEARN the SHOCKING TRUTH about the MISSING ROOSTER! WHY have the FLUCKNJIGJERGERS SNATCHED the POND AWAY from their PEACE-LOVING DUCKS? And WHERE HAVE THE BANTIES GONE? FIND OUT on CHICKEN NEWS TONIGHT!!

1 ) I’m replacing the original tirade that occupied this spot with the following: 99% of television is a puerile and corrosive waste of time.* Hence the mocking tone.

2) Will the chicks survive? No. Two have died; the other five are flourishing. They’re now about the size of (oh, I don’t know, what’s that big?) a small squash and have moved out to the chicken hotel.

3) The bizarre ducks are Indian Runners; I believe I’ve addressed them in a previous post. They have to be seen to appreciate their comic construction; but they were free, and they’re supposed to be terrific layers.

4) We have no idea, but we’re gathering about nine eggs a day now. I love eggs.

5) The rooster was gentle with people but very aggressive with the hens. They would have feathers torn out every time he mounted them. This disturbed Jessica (also the hens) and we found a new home for him.

6) See here. The boat was replaced with a plastic 55-gallon drum, sliced in half lengthwise and filled with water.

&) We Craigslisted the banty rooster and his sister, which hatched last fall. When their new owners came for them at work, the two chickens got away in the parking lot. Hopefully no one was recording us running around the parking lot (hmm, maybe we’re on YouTube right now). This escapade involved my telling a co-worker, “Chuck, there is a chicken in your engine.”

The escapees were eventually apprehended.

*Unfortunately, 1% is hard to hit. This reduces the chance that the 1% of television that does not fit this description is the portion that you like to watch.

Will the contents of this picture feed our family of nine for the next year? Probably not. For one thing, I don’t like the taste of tires. I meant, once everything’s growing, will it produce enough food to last us through until the next harvest? Probably not. But it’s a good start.

On the far left are the fruit trees: various varieties of apple, pear and plum. Between them grow sunflowers and chamomile. On the left you can also just make out one of the two raised beds Jess built (yes, I know she’s amazing) to contain five kinds of squash (spaghetti, zephyr, “little dumplings,” zucchini, and crookneck); pumpkins; and edible gourd. Then come the regular raised beds, that are already 80% planted and will grow green beans (under the white fabric), arugula, beets, kale, cabbage (red and purple), onions (purple and yellow), endive, carrots (2 varieties), lettuce (3 varieites), swiss chard (2 varieities), green onions, radishes, spinach, and snap peas. Then comes the greenhouse, containing leeks, tomatoes (3 varieties), broccoli, celery, cucumbers (3 varieties), collard greens, chinese cabbage, bok choi, watermelon, cantaloupe, and various types of peppers (cayenne, jalapeno, banana, Hungarian wax, and green [2 varieties]). The tires contain potatoes; the idea is to drop tires successively around each plant to contain the dirt we add as they grow.

Missing from this shot, as far as home food production goes, are all the poultry; the horseradish and asparagus in the far left corner of the garden; the berry patches—blue, straw, and rasp; the herb garden and rhubarb cages*; the vegetable contents of the greenhouse; apples, elderberry, huckleberry, and grapes from neighboring lands (we pay for the grapes); our overflowing root cellar; and the deer I’ll shoot this fall. The herb bed contains marjoram, basil (2 varieties), sage, dill, parsley, garlic, thyme, chives, cilantro, and oregano.

And Jess has done virtually all of this.

*Once it gets going, rhubarb needs cages. Not to climb one, like tomatoes or beans, but to protect innocent passers by from getting swallowed up in the rhubarb jungle. We have five (count ‘em) rhubarb plants. You’ve been warned.