Bringing in firewood brings good thoughts ~ December 5, 2002

David Heiller

“Would you mind helping me in the woods?” I asked my son on Sunday morning.

“Yeah, I suppose,” he answered enthusiastically. He knew it was a rhetorical question.

He sat in the back of the trailer as Ι drove the Oliver 66 to the firewood that I had piled along the trail.

The first pile was some big chunks of ash. “Let’s split them first,” I said. “They’ll dry better.

We tackled that job with a double-bitted ax and a Monster Maul that I bought about 20 years ago. The Monster Maul came with a lifetime guarantee, which impressed me at the time. I remember telling Cindy, after seeing the ad in the Mother Earth News, “Hey, how can we go wrong? If it ever breaks, we can get a new one for free.”

And it is indestructible. That was the good news. The bad news is that you have to be a pro football player on steroids to swing it for more than two minutes at a time. It is heavy.

Noah and I discovered that as we tried to split the ash. We did it, but our arms felt like used sticks of chewing gum.

The ax wasn’t much better, Noah informed me. “The handle is cracked!” he said with distaste.

“Fine, just throw the wood in as it is,” I replied. “We can split it in the yard.”

By this time I was having trouble breathing. I get asthma when I exercise, or when it’s cold outside, and both factors were hitting me hard. I sounded like Darth Vader as I loaded the big hunks of wood on the trailer.

It’s a very unpleasant feeling, not being able to catch your breath. I remember as a child seeing my mother hunched over, laboring to breath. It was scary. Now the chickens have come home to roost with me.

Still, I plugged away. I didn’t want to let a 19-year-old boy show me up. We moved up to the next pile, a big sugar maple that had split from a fellow tree. They had been joined at the base like Siamese Twins, which was a weakness that doomed one of them. Cindy had always favored this tree during syrup season, because produced so well. It could hold four buckets, it, was so big. Then it split and half of it was going into the trailer. I should have cut it up a year ago, but I put it off. We heat with propane now and all we need firewood for now is the sauna and making maple syrup and an occasional campfire. It was good to think that the tree would be put to good use one last time.

With Noah walking ahead, I drove back to the yard with the full trailer, then we unloaded it. We talked about important things while worked, like the upcoming Vikings-Falcon football game. Hey, you’d don’t have to have profound conversations in order for them tο be meaningful.

Noah and David

That’s one thing I miss about making fire-wood: it gave me an excuse to work with the kids. I like to think it was good for Noah, having to split wood and keep the woodbox filled. I don’t think he would agree, at least at this point in his life.

There’s a lot that can be said about making firewood. It’s a fairly simple job, but one that: can give you a glimpse of some important things in life. Hard work (even if it brings οn a little asthma). Making sure things don’t go to waste. Working with your kids. I was reminded of that last Sunday, and I’m thankful for that.