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six backpack loads
Sunday, October 28 2018
The rain stopped, the sun came out, and it was a bit warmer today (though definitely still seasonable). It was great weather for working outdoors, so (with a few breaks), I spent nearly all of the daylight hours salvaging wood. Most of what I salvaged was from the large fallen oak at the escarpment only a couple hundred feet southeast of the house. But this wood was waterlogged and not suitable for burning any time soon (probably not this heating season, unless it is first dried atop the stove). But it was easy to work with, so I brought home five backpack loads of it (probably more than 600 pounds, though that would be wet weight). The bucked pieces of trunk were all so thick they first had to be split, and this was why I'd bought a second splitting maul. Of course, I also needed wood for immediate use, and to supply that, I cut pieces from a smaller (though fairly sizable) dead chestnut oak that had fallen at the very northern end of the Stick Trail, less than fifty feet from the house. Inside, the wood was completely dry, so all I had to do was split it and put it near the stove for a few hours and it was ready to burn. I also gathered some very small dead oak trees for kindling, and then, late in the day, I went out and retrieved a sixth backpack load of mostly dry small-diameter (about three-inch-thick) maple. On that foray, I also attempted to cut down a large dead chestnut oak leaning against another tree about 100 feet east of the Stick Trail on a bluff just above the Chamomile gorge. I cut nearly all the way through the trunk about five feet above the ground, and when it didn't fall, I left it that way, hoping the wind would blow it down. One should never cut all the way through a large leaning dead tree trunk. If the cut doesn't begin to open on the hinge of what remains, it's too dangerous to proceed.
Near that problematic dead tree, I found a manmade circle of stones that I hadn't assembled and that hadn't been there two years ago. Then I noticed some charred sticks nearby. Some human had actually camped there, only a couple hundred yards from our house. Unlike much of where I go in the forest, this campsite had actually been built on property that Gretchen and I happen to own. That's kind of weird.
This evening I put on my usual Sunday Night cook's cap (in a manner of speaking) and made one of the two dishes I make: bean chili, this time with hominy, mushrooms, onions, diced tomatoes, and soy curls. For the past several weeks, my only real time on Sundays has been when I take a bath, which is an essential (and welcomed) way to end the day after spending it salvaging firewood. Also, since I have to be presentable all week, I like to do a laundry on Sundays.
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