As far as I can tell, “terrific” used to mean “inducing terror,” as in what folks might have felt centuries ago during a tempest. Last night a thunderstorm raged for (by Jessica’s reckoning) two to three hours. I awoke intermittently to the roar of rain on the roof, thunder that rumbled and crashed loud enough …

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 …

Woodheat.org says having woodpiles drying in the summer sun is like money in the bank. If the average bill for heating a home in our neck o’de woods is $300 a month, my stash of firewood will be worth around $1800. It even earns interest, in that the longer wood sits out in the sun …

It’s an amateur radio. That’s right, I’m a ham. I don’t participate avidly, having a couple of other things to do with my time, but I am part of an emergency communications net that covers our area. Why ham radio, on top of everything else we’re doing? Story time. On January 17, 1994, I was …