Yep. We went a-loggin’ again yesterday.

As you may have noted from past blogs, we gather rosebuds and fire wood logs when we can. We had gathered a nice little cache in the lagoon and they needed to get hauled out of the water (logs not rosebuds).

Yesterday we lifted 13 logs up to the drying bench (a place half way up the hill that allows for the wood to dry without being underfoot). Today we’ll do five more (plus some sundry heavy equipment later). When they are all processed we will be ‘good’ for at least two years and likely three.

I had a selection of pulling winches for this task from which to choose but, remembering the old maxim; ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’, I went with the old slow winch to ensure the job got done. It was slow. But it got done.

Sometimes you just have to hold off on the fun part of a job and so I’ll select and place the right winch when I can maximize the fun quotient sometime later. Cement, heavy lifting, greasy cables…….Oooh, I can hardly wait.

Weather has finally gotten beautiful. Things are as they should be. All is right in our world. But the summer is well underway (according to the calendar but not the weather) and we are a bit behind in our chores (Sal is slowing down a bit, you understand). So we are going to have to pick up the pace a bit or else exploit the scheduled guests. I prefer the latter.

You see, we are seasonally oriented nowadays. And this is the season to get things done. The year is no longer just one long ‘same ol’, same ol’ workday’ at the office. We have to do some things in the spring and fall and way more things in the summer and way fewer things in the winter. And the tasks themselves are seasonally oriented. Gardening, logging, building. They all have their start-dates and finish-by dates. Work is different out here.

And we are appreciating a little help more and more.

I love the enthusiasm with which a newly arrived guest will attack a pile of wood needing splitting. There is a lumberjack inside everyone, it seems. They pick up the maul and start a’ whacking. Wood flies in all directions. For a few minutes, anyway. Then they slow down. After a bit, they stop, get some water and look around for a face-saving way out.

Of course, I usually try to make it easier for them to quit, “Hey, man! Lookin’ a bit bagged, ain’t ya? Y’all might want to rest up for later when you may be called on to lift a few beer cans and your knife and fork! Ya big pussy! Damn! My little Chinese girls – all 80 pounds of them – would have had that pile chopped and stacked by now. You seein’ a doctor regular like?”

That works on the guys.

The women are different. “Wow! You are good. Most women can’t get that maul over their shoulders, let alone swing it anywhere near the target. You are at least hittin’ the choppin’ block and that’s a good start. The little Chinese girls couldn’t hit the ’round’ either. Usually took ém at least ten or so whacks before they started gettin’ the range. Hooeeeee! Then the wood started flyin’!”

Then I leave. Come back when it is done…………(he heh heehe)

Here’s a bit of information for you: at a certain point in the year – sometime in late April – we are supposed to tilt our solar panels to catch the maximum rays from the sun’s ascending arc in the sky. We usually forget until about mid May. This year we didn’t ‘adjust’ until June 1. By June the sun is high in the sky and every year we are stunned by the jump in the solar panel output. Not so much this year as it has been so cloudy but, even at that, we can now go a whole week without running the genset. It is truly magic.

In the dead of winter, we run the genset for two hours every day or three every other day. And, even at that, we run the BIG genset once a week for four or five hours so our gensets are a-hummin’. In the summer, we may put on an average of two hours a week. Sometimes nothing.

My wind gen is good. But not great. It is only a 400 watt wind turbine but it just doesn’t produce enough to warrant having it. I suppose it earns it’s keep in the winter. It will certainly keep the batteries ‘topped’ when we are away – which is a damn good thing. But it cannot make enough juice to ‘use’ unless the wind is howling. I may gamble someday and get a bigger one but the key determinant is low wind speed generation and few, if any, produce much below 15 mph.

Well, I see ol’ Sal strapping on the boots and getting the chokes ready. Seems we are off to do a bit more log haulin’………….