I've learned a few things in the past week. I've always heard that you're never too old to learn, so that's a good thing. One of the things I've picked up on is the fact that it is possible to sweat profusely when the temperature outside is below 20 degrees.

I learned that interesting tidbit the other day while splitting firewood with a maul and wedges. The supply on the porch had gotten down to mere scraps, so I didn't lack for motivation here in what became the Arctic circle from mid December through earlier this week, formerly known as North Carolina. As I write this, it's still in the lower 20s for a high, but I think it's supposed to get warm about the time this paper comes out. Well, if you consider 40 warm.

After swinging an eight-pound maul for an hour or two, I was surprised at the amount of wood one could accumulate. I was equally surprised to be panting for breath with sweat running down my back. I could actually feel my heart thumping as I tried to keep up with the work without stopping, breaking all sizes of locust, hickory and cherry with swings of the maul that grew progressively less violent as the work continued.

As I began to run out of steam, I switched over to my wedges, which include an old hatchet head that I use to get started sometimes when the wood's really hard.

It's a good thing that wedges are hard to break, since they cost about $16 each. A whole ax only costs a little over $20. I've been considering getting a hydraulic splitter, but I've just not been able to justify the expense. They cost $1,000 or more. If I had one of those and a trailer, I could get great amounts of wood done in short amounts of time. However, if I had the $2,000 those two items might cost, I could probably buy firewood from someone else for six or seven years.

I also would get much less exercise from swinging the go devil, which is one local name for a maul. As good as this abundance of free exercise might sound, it lost some of its appeal as I was standing outside with the frosty wind blowing and sweat soaking through my undershirt. After the porch was full and I was back inside with my wet clothes off sipping coffee by the fire, I felt a lot better about it.

I broke several child labor laws that day by getting the kids to stack the broken pieces of wood on the porch as I continued to split. I bribed them with tacos. I was very proud of their efforts, as I was of my own. They just wanted the tacos. My oldest daughter, my best worker, told me, "I could carry wood all day." That was about half an hour before she querried, "Can we go inside now?"

However, she stayed the course and filled up a good part of the wood rack, which is about eight feet long and four feet high (hence the half a cord I mentioned earlier).

I've been burning through about a cord a month recently, but I hope this warm spell that's supposed to peak about the time this newspaper hits the stands will give everyone a break.

This year might not be the coldest on record, but it sure seems like it after the cold snap we've had that has kept the snow from Dec. 18 on the ground for the better part of a month with more ice and snow falling every Thursday or Friday every week since. Well, at least until this week.

Three or four weeks with the temperature below freezing almost all the time is an incredible run, in my opinion. And I've kept a fire constantly for the entire period. I did let it die down one day so I could shovel out the ashes. I opted to do that, while saving a good number of coals, after I started having trouble keeping the fire in the stove when I tried to open the door.

I always throw the ashes, after they cool off, on the garden or on one of the flower gardens around the house. I've always been told their good for the soil, but I really just need a place to throw them. When I was a boy, we used to throw the coal ashes on the driveway. I thought it was to help melt off the snow and ice, but it might have been for the same reason I throw them on the garden.

Thinking of coal ashes reminds me of my father. One morning as I arose early to get the coffee pot and the woodstove stoked, I had a vivid memory of him.

Every morning around 5 a.m. I would hear my daddy in the living room, opening the dampers, followed by the thud of big chunks of coal falling into the stove. I never got up, but I would wait under the covers until the house got warmer.

As I thought about him getting up and tending to the fire, I realized that I was playing the role he had played while I was growing up for my own family. It is now my job to make sure the fire stays hot and the house stays warm. I didn't get a ‘keeper of the flame' credential or anything, but in memory I could hear the fire crackle and pop as the coffee bubbled in the percolator. It was almost as if I could reach through time for a couple of seconds there, but it passed quickly as I headed out into the freezing cold to carry in another armload of firewood.

Perhaps that's what daddies are supposed to do, I thought. After the house was warmer, my mother would get breakfast going. We often ate eggs, with meat like sausage, tenderloin, country ham or bacon, and then used the grease to make gravy to cover our hot biscuits. There was also always molasses, dark brown or cinamon apple butter and honey to choose from for dessert. Fried potatoes, fried hot dogs, grits and oat meal also sometimes made an appearance. I miss that ‘stick to your ribs' fare. These days, I only eat like that once a week or less and I'm usually the cook. You know, it might be a good day to have breakfast for supper.
 

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