Today You Are a Man

I think I remember the conversation correctly, but a few years ago I was walking around my parents' farm with my grandpa and he said something like, "You know, you're not really a man in this family until you have a big pile of wood." I think he was referring to wood intended for building, but I suppose it could apply to any large pile of cut up tree parts. Today I got my pile of wood. Actually, by the time the guys with the trailer full of wood got here it was the middle of the night. We had ordered one cord of firewood, but they showed up with two in case anyone else responded to their ad while they were getting our wood. We decided to take the second cord. The trailer wouldn't quite get back to the gate in our backyard, so they had to dump it in the driveway. I spent some time moving a lot of it into the backyard, but gave up well after midnight with only about half of it done. Tomorrow I will move the rest. Tonight as I moved the wood, I got caught in some sort of Chaos pocket in which the size of the pile in the driveway increased and the size of the pile in the back yard shrunk in proportion to the pain in my back. At least I again have the tools I need to feed my love of the flame. I run downstairs about thirty times a night to check on the fire and poke at it knowingly with a stick, prodding the coals to ideal spots and generally hen-pecking the flames to death. Next month we will probably be able to purchase a more modern wood stove with a bit more heating capacity and some mechanism to cut down on the smoke. They make some pretty neat stoves.

Not much else to report. When I got home from work today my wife had found my new Christmas slippers and taken control of them. I suspect that we will have to get her a pair or I will only get intermittent visitations with them.

I'm sure there is plenty more to write about, but I think it is high time I get to bed. There is plenty of work to do tomorrow.