The Pursuit of Firewood
I’m not sure if it was because he was a product of the northwest or if it was just true of his generation, but my dad has ever been incapable of passing up the pursuit of firewood.
Each and every time I see a pile of wood in a yard or on the side of the road, without or without a FREE WOOD sign, I think something like: "I wonder if my dad knows about this pile of wood?"
I think he could be one his way for any rather important event (catch a plane, hospital, funeral, etc.) and be tempted to stop along the way if he saw a pile of unclaimed firewood.
I remember many a trip into the woods for the pursuit of firewood, many a stacking session back at the house.
Armed with that background and formative experience it seemed only right to make taking out the tree in our backyard a family event.
We sawed, chopped, pulled, dragged, ran sorted and stacked for two and 1/2 days. We’ve got cuts, scrapes, nicks and bruises as mementos of our battle against the tree.
Piled neatly along the back fence of our back 40 is a cord of firewood that should be ready to burn by next winter.
I wonder if my my dad knows about this pile of wood?
6 Responses to “The Pursuit of Firewood”
Living IN the valley and UNDER a constant inversion layer, we no longer burn wood in the fireplace. We miss our occasional cozy fire, but no longer find ourselves searching for wood.
Gas log in my house. It’s cozy warm without the fun (think work) of collecting wood.
Blog about your collecting wood in the cemetery story.
I hope you don’t come to discover it was some federally protected tree! You know, this is California.
ummm, what would your dad do with all that firewood in South Florida?
Growing up in the country with a wood-burning stove makes me appreciate central heat! We have a fireplace but the summer BEFORE gas prices skyrocketed, we took out the insert and put in gas logs. So, of course, now we don’t use wood OR the gas logs!
Our Youth Deacon had my son and some other teen boys over for a session of “splitting wood.” The weight lifter / health conscious part of it loved it!
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