a mighty fine country weekend

I had really wanted to post last weekend, but Jude and I figured that we’d best use

the time gathering firewood.  Nathan goes back to California next week, and any

huge chunk of timber he throws into the truck, then out of the truck at home is

one that we don’t have to.  Our backs, after all, are three times older than his.

Collecting wood is by far the most strenuous of all our chores.         

There’s a new cut block just two clicks from the house.  We made several trips,

picking through the logs going to lumber mills for the smaller collateral damage.

Timber West, the corporation that does all the cutting here, allows us to do that

on weekends because it reduces the stumpage fee it has to pay when a cut block

is done.

A win-win situation, unless you consider clear-cutting a desecration, as some 

folks on the island do.  I’ve softened my opposition over the six years we’ve been

here.  T. West replants every cut block, and they regenerate remarkably fast, if

you don’t compare the life cycle of a Douglas fir to a human’s.  

So off we trundled in the truck, Slinkee beside me in the back as Jude drove.  The

logs were mercifully close to the road.  Jude and I threw them down from the

burn piles and Nathan heaved them into the bed.  Then we’d head home, Slinkee

gamely trying to find footing on the wood.

By Sunday afternoon we had the area next to the wood sheds stacked with logs

to be cut and split.  We called it a job well done, had lunch and watched the Giants

game.  Then Jude worked in the garden and Nathan checked with the outside world

through the magic of the internet.  My body had fossilized on the couch, so there I

napped until I could help Jude.

She had let the hens out of the coop to help her as she dug up a plant bed.  It was

endearing to see her surrounded by the girls as they gobbled up the various bugs 

she unearthed.  Jude said they were also snagging the many flies bedeviling her.

I helped her herd them back to the coop.  She made us a superb pasta dinner that

we enjoyed on the back deck.  Then we were visited by a young couple interested

in self-sufficiency and blogging.

Put this one in the books as a mighty fine country weekend.