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Wood
I love working with wood. I don’t know what it is about it, but I just feel like I’m in my element when I laboring with the stuff.
Am I talking about furniture building or carpentry? Nope. I stink at those things. Way too much artistry and skill involved with those activities for me!
I’m talking about working with cord wood. Wood for burning. I LOVE it!
When I homesteaded in Maine, I used to cut, split and stack twelve cords a year. I heated my old farmhouse with it, and I cooked with it also. (I had an old, Home Comfort cookstove with the spackled, enamel front and sides. Wonderful old thing! I wish I kept it!)
Now, in Connecticut, the house is much better insulated than the 125-year-old structure I had in Maine, the CT winters aren’t as aggressive as are the ones in ME, and I cook with gas instead of maple. So I only need five cords a year here.
Before Mary Ellen and I bought our soapstone, wood burning stove five years ago, we went through about six hundred gallons of home heating oil a year. Our heating oil company put us on automatic delivery, and about once a month during the fall and winter, we would receive a delivery of a little over a hundred gallons of liquefied fossils.
When we started burning wood to heat the house, we cut our oil consumption by 70%. In fact, our oil company took us off "automatic delivery" because we were using so little of their product.
Is it the monetary savings that makes me feel so good about the wood?
Partly, I guess. But it is more than that.
All of the wood I used is cut, split and stacked by hand…MY hand.
I have a twenty-five year old Husqvarna chainsaw and a twenty year old Monster Maul that I use. That’s it. I do own a hydraulic splitter that runs off the PTO of my tractor, but I only use that when my back hurts and the wood can’t wait for my chiropractic appointments. I also use an old fashioned True Temper wheelbarrow to get the cut and split wood from the pasture, where the cutting and splitting is done, to the woodpile in the backyard.
It’s GREAT exercise. I wear my pulse monitor, and I get my heart rate up to between 140 and 160 beats for 30 minutes, five or six days a week. Especially when I’m swinging that 15-pound Monster Maul over my head for a half hour at a clip!
At the end of one of these sessions, I am usually drenched in sweat and every muscle in my body is aching, tired, and calling me an idiot. And, along with a great cardio session, I’ve actually gotten something accomplished!
When I look at my woodpile in the back yard, I feel good about myself. Look what I did!
Seriously!
In my job, nothing is physical. I have accomplishments, for sure, but most of my work is verbal. It’s nothing that I can stand back and LOOK at when the day comes to an end.
With the wood, I can look at it…and I do.
It makes me feel good to know that I still have the strength and stamina to do something like this. (Plus, it keeps my body in good shape!)
Looking at the wood also makes me feel secure, independent and…well…somewhat autonomous.
I like it.
I like doing it.
I like feeling good about myself.
Wood does that for me.
posted on Jan 8, 2009 9:12 AM ()
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That is stupendous! I wonder shat it is about men and wood? I also wonder what it is about women and cooking. I seriously don't understand either. I did read that Donna can do wood as well as John, though! Good for her! Good for all of you! 
you are cute. Glad wood makes ya happy! 
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