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back tranche restored, 2018
Sunday, October 14 2018
While Gretchen and Neville were off at the bookstore selling books, I returned to processing the rough firewood that had been rotting (and moldering) in front of the woodshed for the past few years. As I neared completion of the third tranche, I was concerned by the fact that I was burying so much reasonably-dry firewood beneath wood that might never dry until next year. Clearly, I needed dry wood for more immediate use, especially with the cold weather starting to assert itself. This caused me to head off into the forest west of the Farm Road with the big battery-powered chainsaw and the frame firewood-hauling backpack, my first use of that since March or April of 2016 (I'd evicted the ants and plants from it a couple months ago). I soon found a nice dead oak snag of a size that allowed immediate and complete processing. This resulted in a heavy load that I carried directly into the house for immediate use. I could tell the load was on the edge of what I can normally carry (getting to my feet with it being the hardest part). Fortunately, the path home was all downhill and only consisted of two relatively-short lengths of modestly-steep downhill slope. Before unloading it, I weighed myself and then, without the pack, I weighed myself again. The load came to 133.5 pounds (that includes the pack itself, though not my saw, which I'd been carrying in my hands). Later I went out on another run with the pack to retrieve some fairly dry dead standing white pine much closer to the house. This time the load was probably closer to a 100 pounds, and I only put part of it inside. The rest of it helped me complete the woodshed's back tranche, which had last been complete on January 8th of this year.
This evening I ran a hot fire in the stove so it would be comfortably warm when Gretchen and Neville returned. I also made a pot of rice and a pan of my chili. Then I took a bath and did a load of laundry. The blanket on the living room couch was smelling like stinky dog, so I was sure to throw that in there with the same four or five pieces of clothing that I wear when I go to work.
I've noticed that all my toenails now have smooth pink roots on them, probably representing the period of time during which I've been wearing socks and shoes (technically: Keen closed-toe sandals) for eight hours a day the workplace. I hadn't expected the change of foot environment to have such a visible (and good) affect. (My toenails never looked so good in past winters, when the main difference from the current situation was that they were in socks but not shoes all day.)
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