If woodpiles could talk ~ February 11, 1988

David Heiller

I sold insurance for a time, in between teaching and newspapering. My district manager taught me a lot of sales tricks, though he called them “techniques.” That’s kind of like calling that place at rest stops where dogs go the “pet exercise area.” We all know what they really do there.

We all called on farmers. One of my boss’s tricks was to size up the place as he drove up. He would look at the outbuildings and judge whether the man or woman was the leader of the house. Sturdy barns with a fresh coat of paint, or a well-fenced pasture, told him the man was in charge, and he would address his sales pitch to the man.

If the house looked shabby, or the buildings were leaning, but the kitchen looked like it belonged in ladies Home-Journal, he would direct his comments more to the woman.

His theory didn’t always work. It was too simplistic. I have to tell myself that when I look at my woodpile and woodshed, or else admit abject slavery to Cindy, something I’m not prepared to do in the black and white of a newspaper we jointly own.

Woodpiles have a way of reflecting their owner. At this time of year, mine reflects the image of a Sunday morning bathroom mirror after a long night at the Sidetrack Tap.

We have two woodpiles. The one I’m using now is next to the garage, under a woodshed which doesn’t complement it at all. I made it from two-by-fours that are half a foot higher on the east than the west. The idea was to have the water run off to the west, which it does, right into the garage. (I call it a garage, but we’ve never had our car in it.) The pitch of the roof is even more severe because the twο-by-fours have shifted and sagged to the west. The whole thing is held up by a post hastily pounded in a year ago.

Not all the water runs off though. The tin roof, which I scrounged from Dan Flom, has many nail holes in it. It’s held in place with chunks of wood. Water finds the old nail holes and drips onto the woodpile during rain storms or the long spring thaw.

With the recent cold weather, the woodpile is looking pretty long in the tooth. There’s about a week of elm and oak left, before I hit the birch and popple [which in east central Minnesota is poplar] which neighbor Harvey Williams gave me a year and a half ago. Harvey is a fine neighbor, but he doesn’t give away good wood. He may be surprised to read that I’m about to burn it now. Harvey has 150 cords of wood in his north field, which is for sale, so he’s probably happy to hear about that birch and popple.

But before I visit Harvey, I can turn to my other pile of wood, which is buried under a snowdrift on the west side of the house. It’s good wood, the remains of a 100-year-old elm that came down in October. Once I get it uncovered, and split, and dried, we should be all right.

The old elm tree remnants.
Splitting elm is miserable work, 
who could blame him for keeping it till last?

I admire people with nice woodpiles, and people who make a lot of wood. People like Denny Molgaard, Bruno. I remember asking him about his woodpile last fall, as he filled my car at Bruno Deep Rock. “Yeah, I’ve just about got it all put up,” he said.

“So you’ll make it through this winter?” I asked.

He looked at me out of the side of his eyes. “That’s next year’s supply,” he said.

Like I said a woodpile says a lot about a man. Just how much, I’m afraid to admit.