I LOVE MY LIFE

Yesterday I was out splitting fire wood for the wood stove – dressed in Bean boots, long johns, jeans, a wool shirt, a fleece hoodie, a wind breaker and a knit hat.    This is who I am and who I have always been.   The temps were just short of twenty degrees and a blustery wind was blowing. 

Once I had moved enough wood for a couple of days fire into the back porch I took a walk through the woods west of my house looking for birch bark ruminants blown down by the last storm that I could use for fire starting.   There were deer tracks under the apple tree and moose tracks skirting the edge of my yard.

I came inside and the house was warm and toasty – the wood stove pumping heat, the comfortable sight of the fire glowing through the glass door.    The house smelled of fresh maple bread that was baking in the bread maker, and my young wife was snuggled on the couch reading with our cat curled contently beside her.  They both raised their eyes for a moment and looked at me as I hung up my outdoor gear before heading back to the kitchen for a cup of tea. 

I experienced one of those moments of total contentment: Life is Good.

the Ol’Buzzard

THE OLD BULL AND THE YOUNG BULL

ACCEPTING AGE

Yesterday I was moving wood from the woodshed behind my house to the storage rack I have built by my side door.   After the second trip of loading wood on my sled and hauling it and stacking it at the storage rack I was feeling twinges in my lower back.   I opened the side door (I couldn’t go in because I had cleats on my boots) and asked my wife to get my elastic back support. 

I was somewhat pissed off with myself remembering that I use to work in the woods all day and never had to wear a back support.   I knew better than to complain to my wife, however, because her answer would be ‘Get over it, you are not thirty any more,’ (no sympathy there.)

Back out at the wood pile – bitching to myself- I thought of an old ol’cowboy joke:

An old bull and a young bull are on top of a hill, looking down at a herd of cows.

The young bull taunts, “Hey old man, how about we run down this hill and fuck a couple of those cows.”

The old bull replies, “I have a better idea son; I’ll just walk down the hill and fuck um all.”

I think the moral of the joke is that you can’t let young bulls decide who you are.  And: I’m not thirty any more.

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For anyone who heats with fire wood I am enclosing a couple of pics of the storage unit I built by my side door.   The top to the wood frame box that is the roof of this unit is a piece of metal roofing I had left over.  The top (roof) is not attached to the sides and can be lifted up and turned over forming a metal bottom box that I fill with potting soil and use as a back door herb garden in the summer.   The base of the unit is 4x4’s and the side upright post that support the roof are 2x8’s.   In the winter I cover the storage unit with a small tarp – leaving the side of the tarp by the door unsecured and weighted at the bottom – for access.   The overall size of the unit is 2x8x4 - designed to hold 1/2 cord of wood. 

the Ol’Buzzard