Monday, September 7, 2009

LABOR DAY!




Greg Joly came down this week for part of a day and we hauled out two cord, or ten truck loads, of different size firewood. All two years dry and some extremely small to move by hand. Pick up six at a time. Ideal for the small firebox in the kitchen wood cookstove. It's all worth the effort. Oak, beech, ironwood, some maple, even hemlock, and hornbeam turning a little punky. White birch gone all to punk. Those will go in the camp fire tonight Susan and I will build at dusk to make supper on a grill and watch the damp night fall down around us river sound and last of the insects and all. We asked the worker in the aisles of the town food co-op yesterday just where were the marshmallows; we knew we had seen them once upon a time when we didn't want them. With a campfire tonight we'll need marshmallows. Too bad we don't any longer have a child or friends of the child around. They go well with marshmallows. Hearing the giggles and firelight in their eyes as the white coated soft marshmallow turns maple syrup brown. A shriek when one bursts into small flame. Anyway, the wood has been pulled out of the woodlot just in time.

Yes, the mosquitos, the spider webs! in the woods. With the truck we made tracks up into this part of the woodlot where tracks haven't been for years. Once upon a time I made tracks there with my Willy's jeep all the time. Now it's by wheelbarrow. We built the wood into a two cord wood cairn and I'll share a photograph that Susan snapped. I'm up on a ladder peering over. Greg's posing for the pretty photographer.

We sold our Ford Taurus to my brother in Boston after I bought for Susan a used Subaru for our 35th anniversary. It's got what they call a "moon roof" but so far it seems to work best as a "sun-roof", though we've only driven it two times in the daytime. Never owned such a fancy car. 2001. My mechanic friend who sold it to us thought he was giving us quite a feature, but we almost didn't want it, when we heard the seats actually heated up! Yesterday, while driving, we both noticed two buttons near the seats and no idea what they were for. A few miles went by then it dawned on us. The heated seats. Truth be told it was the moon-roof that sold us the car even before we lifted the hood and checked the oil.

The silly hard working days of late summer.