Spring has been having some trouble getting a foothold in these parts. Since the equinox on March 20, there have been some stellar days, days that have warmed our hearts and fertilized our garden dreams, followed by way too many days of chill and frost and ice pellets. While May has shown far more promise than her predecessor April, as I sit at my desk today, I'm reading of a few frost warnings for tonight. But fear not my friends, a sure sign of warmth and contentment, real heat and blazing light rolled onto our street yesterday morning and right up our driveway.
Yes indeed, the annual truckload of next winter's firewood arrived, all 5+ tons of it. With air brakes sighing, the familiar white truck rolled in from the highway, right on time.
John, from John's Firewood, has the routine down pat. In one fluid movement, he backs his rig in from the road, lines it up with the woodshed, then tips the bucket.
With a ground-shaking rumble three bush cords of split hardwood tumble out. He pulls the rig forward, gives the bucket a good thump or three to shake any last bits out and pulls back onto the driveway.
Job Done in under three minutes!
All that remains to be done is 20+ hours of stacking 384 cubic feet of firewood. Easy peasy - especially when compared to what my love and I used to do back in our "pioneer" days. Thirty-five or so years ago, in the land before children, full-length logs were dumped in front of the woodshed. We cut, split and stacked. There was even one summer (and only ONE!) when we helped clear a government woodlot. We felled the trees and hauled them out to the tractor, which then delivered them to be cut, split and stacked.
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| 1985 with the first of our four-pawed children, Sheba. |
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| 2018 |
Well, there's little more than a month to get the stacking done before travel plans take over the timetable, and I do love making order out of chaos, so I'd best get out there.
The birds are singing, the hanging baskets are up and the firewood has been dumped.
Spring - the 2018 edition - has sprung!
©2018 April Hoeller
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