I want to be considerate of the few neighbors we have; so I debar the use of power tools before 9 am. This precluded my getting to my firewood as early as I would have liked last Friday morning. But other things can be done without disturbing the neighbors; so I took the seats out of the BGF and, using it as a pickup truck as before, I hauled the last two loads of logs out of the garden area that had been sitting there since before the house was built, and the logs beside the driveway that have been sitting there since the snow melted.

When I judged the neighbors might be tumbling out of bed for their coffee, it was time for the fun to begin. I blocked, split, and stacked about one third of this stack before taking a break, and by then I was so hot I went down into the root cellar and sat in the dark for ten minutes to cool down. Then it was time to take the kids to the lake.

No better way to cool off after a hard morning’s work than by plunging into water. Especially if it’s deep, and the wind has stirred up the cold water to the surface. Hoo-eee! Jessica kept saying how hot it was out, but I dove deep once, and the water around me felt like frozen gel. Yowie! It was nice to come up to the surface, and practice shallow diving off the dock together with Hank. (He looks like a Golden Retriever, but he loves the water so much we suspect he’s actually a four-legged fish. I can’t let him get too close to me in the water, though; he’s a strong swimmer, and I’ve been scratched by his claws.)

When we came home I finished the wood pile down by the flower bed. Next day being the Fourth of July, I didn’t get back to my fun-n-games until after the parade. It was 91 degrees out but I have to get my firewood done, so out into the sun I came. By end of day I had finished this stack. I estimate that it’s over a cord by itself, bringing to five my number of wood piles, and just over a cord to go to reach my goal.

We’re back to the workweek now, which means I have very little time for this type of amusement. But it’s nice when I come home to walk around admiring my stacks of wood, seeing them check and gradually darken in the sun, and occasionally hear a little crack as the fibers dry out and separate. It’s nice to think of all this summer heat storing up in the wood, to be released into our snug home when the snow is falling outside.