Oops…

I was packing in another three wheelbarrows-full of stovewood when the nearest tall stack, which is – or was – taller than I am, collapsed toward me. For a moment I had the impulse to try and keep it from falling, but then I came to my senses and got the hell out of the way of the inevitable…

All my fault, too, but I’ll take it as a learning experience. I noticed when I went in with the first barrow-full that the finished stack seemed to be leaning forward, and didn’t do anything about it. The woodshed has a rear wall for a reason – if I pack it so things tend to lean backward, there should be no problem. But instead I tried to stack them without any lean, in hope of tying the five or six stacks together with longer lengths of wood. Clearly that didn’t work. So now they’re leaning against one another, and toward the back.

Not quite mid-September, and I’m already halfway to my target. That’s far more wood than I’ve ever started a winter with, probably more than I’ll need even if I don’t cut any all winter – and I always end up cutting wood in winter, if only for something to do. I know I bitch about winter, but the truth is winter here is episodic and the days are usually not all that cold. So there are plenty of winter days where working on firewood presents no hardship, truth is it’s a lot more comfortable to do it when the temp’s 40 than when it’s 85.

But I’m going nuts with it now because I’m overloaded with pallets, because there have been stormy winter weeks where my just-in-time “system” left me anxious, and because Pessimist Joel says we’re due for a memorable cold season. I don’t really know if that’s true, but it costs nothing but effort to plan ahead for it.