Timberrrrr.....ing

Since a goodly part of our winter house heating is done with wood in the fireplace and the wood stove a supply of firewood is a handy thing to have around. When we moved in last year it was too late to cut wood so I bought some. Then when the ice storm hit we got the ice fallen limbs from Martha and Larry for this winter. Next winters wood will be the first I've harvested off our land here.

With no substitute job today and a promised sunny, though chilly day, I thought it would be a great time to get a start on next winters wood pile. Sunny didn't quite happen until about the time I was tired enough that I figured I should call it a day before something bad happened. The chilly lived up to the forecast quite nicely though..about 18 degrees when I started out this morning and about 23 when I returned around noon:30.

I was well layered up as I ventured off for my first major attempt at imitating Bobby Sherman. I had concerns about staying safe and with Cyrilee off in DC put out a fail safe message on my FB page to launch search parties if I didn't update before dark. I also had my SPoT (www.findmespot.com) device and sent a test "I'm ok" message ( http://bit.ly/6kbeHV ). I could have used it to summon 911 if necessary.

Things went pretty well but I did have a couple of problems. To help stay hydrated I took a small thermos of coffee and a bottle of green tea. The coffee stayed pretty warm but the green tea kept freezing up, I kept squishing the bottle to break up the ice but it was difficult to stay ahead of it. Also, my beard kind of froze to the draw string slide adjuster of the hood I was wearing, along with some wood chips... ( http://twitpic.com/stiig ).

I also ran into a small difficulty with one of my least favorite farm construction materials. As I was clearing away small trees and branches around the top of the fallen tree, I managed to free a 12 foot piece of old barbed wire from its entanglement within the branches. I did this while I had a running chainsaw in my hands.

Said barbed wire immediately attacked my legs. When it hit the outside of my right leg I instinctively moved that leg away from the barbed wire and closer to my left leg. At this point the wire managed to snag both the left and right pants legs pretty much locking my feet very close together. As I have a compromised vestibular system, having my feet really close together is not a real stable position, plus the whole barbs into the legs wasn't very pleasant and the running chainsaw in my hands was of some concern.

Having been recently immersed in the adventures of the British explorer, David Livingstone, I pulled out my best imitation British voice and said, "Well, this is a bit of a pickle we've managed to get ourselves into." Then my one brain cell that was only semi-frozen suggested that I might, at my earliest convenience, shut off and put down the chainsaw. I saw there was some wisdom in this suggestion and complied in a less than leisurely manner.

After a bit of blood and struggle, I managed to extricate myself from the wires fiendish grip. The rest of the outing was mostly without incident. While the resulting pile of firewood isn't overly impressive, it is a good start to next winter's heating fodder... http://twitpic.com/stjs1

.. take care.. t