Fire season is over. Firewood season has just begun. They are related.

Just as soon as we no longer need heat in the house – and that seems to be now, now that we have gone the last few days without a fire – it is time to get the wood in for the next season. We already have some in (left over from last year) but not enough and it is de rigeur to have dry wood when you need it. Nice to have the ‘left over’ for Fall start-up though.

So the rule is: chop now, dry in the summer and burn later. Ideally, we would be a season ahead of ourselves with a season and half of drying but it is hard to get that far ahead. Very few manage to do that.

John does, tho.

Of course, this seasonal event has come about when I am currently walking around slightly crooked from an uncooperative muscle group in the lower to mid back region. Cutting rounds and splitting them is made more difficult if you are using most of your breathing to scream out in pain.

And, during these primal outbursts, Sal is reluctant to get too close to help. Oh well, it keeps the wolves at bay.

Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have the weight, density or sense of rhythmn that is required to split big rounds. It is one of my few abilities – I can swing an axe with just the right tempo, like a Motown Temptation. Dooo wop! Split! Another round in pieces.

I’m going to work on the lyrics.

A spine with an invisible screw driver stuck between vertebrae, however, limits one’s moves and so I am hot-water-bottling as fast as I can. I may have to rely on W’fers.

And so it goes around here. Just when you wonder how you are going to get something done, someone miraculously shows up with the answer. Yesterday, Sal got a present at book club. Seems we have two strapping Dutch boys/young men coming to visit and I will be introducing them to the splitting maul. Of that, you can be sure.

Perhaps, after that, I will be introducing them to the hot water bottle. We’ll see.

But we still have to get the logs up the hill before they arrive and, although I put the winch back together, I am still a bit reluctant to ‘work it’ as that process, too, takes back muscles. A handful of Ibuprofen should get us through, tho. Or two.

It is funny, really. You come out here and enjoy getting in shape, enjoy developing skills and enjoy getting stronger. It is definitely a good thing. At the same time, you realize that you have to get stronger. It is not an option. There is no choice. Get weaker and you have to go home to the city and buy a condo. Eat sushi. Get cable TV.

I don’t wanna do that.

It is a subtle lesson. Of course, we all know that we are dependent on our health but, in modern times, that has a certain general meaning – a minimal standard of functioning one expects from oneself (being able to sit on the couch and talk on the cell phone and make deals and reservations at the sushi bar. Maybe drive a car with GPS and cameras so as to minimize the effort).

Out here, that meaning is different. It is one that doesn’t show up often when you are healthy and going like a train but which stops you in your tracks when one of the wheels comes off. Out here, you can be as nutty as a fruitcake and dysfunctional in oh-so-many ways (not own a cell phone, a Blackberry or have cable or even electricity for that matter. Some don’t have cars!) and you can still get along if you have a strong back.

A good mind doesn’t help much with the wood getting.

And so I have a good mind to get W’fers.