Firewood has been the focus of my life for the past little while, with little time to consider much else.

Other than a brief stint working for a charitable purpose and another working for the newspaper, I spent most of the rest of my time holding up a chainsaw or loading up logs, poles and sticks.

As usual, I tried to take the smaller stuff in poles, pieces some six to eight feet long. That way I can get it home as quickly as possible and then return to haul a little more. However, the bigger stuff must be cut into shorter pieces, for obvious reasons. One fresh-cut hickory tree in particular was so heavy that it was difficult to load even a normal-size piece of wood without help.

I may have mentioned this earlier, but I was blessed with a wonderful place to cut wood this year. That doesn't exactly happen every year. The fellow who gave me the wood was kind enough to even have most of the brush moved out of the way, leaving my only real task to be cutting, loading and hauling away the logs. If there ever was an ideal situation, this is close. And by close I mean that the place is only about 10 minutes or so from my house, so it's fairly quick and inexpensive driving the truck back and forth. When you get 16 miles per gallon of fuel, things like this matter more to you.

Last year, I hauled wood from Ennice to Sparta, so I have every right to be loving this. I was able to borrow a trailer to haul some of it on last year, meaning that I didn't have to make as many trips as I might have.

This year, after having hauled some six truckloads or so, I'm finding it difficult to even think about firewood. Then again, haven't spent so much time doing it, it was easier to think about firewood than anything else.

By the time I got my last load on the truck over the weekend, I had banged both my legs multiple times, fallen down twice, been raked by briars, dropped a log on my toe, and scratched up my forearms. My legs are beginning to believe the word of the day is ‘contusion'.

Even one of hips was starting to hurt, giving my back something with which to compare notes.

Even so, other than hurting my back the first day getting out of the truck (no kidding), I've not had any major problems in that regard. Considering the size and weight of some of the stuff I've loaded, I should probably be more thankful than I have been.

Also on the bright side, most of the wood has been laying for about a year and is pretty well seasoned, leaving me only to split it and stick it in the stove. I gave up stacking wood a while back, since it works just as well in a big pile and it takes a lot less time.

I'll have several days worth of work cutting up the poles and splitting the bigger stuff, but at least I can sleep easy for one more year, knowing that my supply of wood to heat the house is already outside.

I have two friends who have offered to help me with splitting the bigger pieces of wood that I have cut, but I already have quite a bit of stuff that is the right size to go ahead and stick in the stove.

I've been putting the wood closer to the house this year, pile upon pile at the end of the driveway and on the hillside nearby, until it's almost like driving into a Revolutionary War fort when I park the truck.

With the weather in the 60s here lately, it's getting harder to remember those two weeks in October when I had a fire going in the stove every day. No matter how things may look right now as I write this column, there's little doubt that everything will change by the time it's printed. It always happens that way.

I have no doubt that I will be more than happy to have all that wood stacked up outside before the winter is over with. I've not been unhappy about it yet.

These days, it's getting harder and harder to find all the wood I need for a year. At one time, there were multiple places I could cut each season. Now it's getting to where I'm feeling blessed to find one.

One of the fellows who had given me many loads of wood over the years passed away unexpectedly. Since he was only in his early 60s, it was a surprise to everyone, including me. He had called me earlier this year and invited me over to look at some wood he wanted me to cut. I didn't get to go that weekend and I hadn't talked to him for a few months. He was always nice to me and always willing to help me keep my family warm.

His sister told me that one day he was sanding the hood on his car and the next morning he was gone. Most folks want to die in their sleep, or so I've been told. But I can imagine that might leave a number of goodbyes unsaid and it certainly leaves a number of questions unanswered for those who are left behind.

I suppose there really is no time when one is ready for such a thing. The best thing to do is to always have preparations made for all the coming winters in life.
 

Get the whole story - read this week's edition of The Alleghany News!