Fascinated by Firewood

Yes, yet another blog about the fireplace.

Fio and Husband had a fireplace in their previous home that they fed with real wood, but that wood was bought from H-E-B, and every log looked pretty much the same. Now the wood comes from their own land--fallen branches salvaged, or dead trees that have been chain-sawed down--and each length of the resulting firewood looks different from every other length.  Right now, Fio is looking at a misshapen chunk of hardwood balanced sideways on top of a three-inch-in-diameter oak log while, in front of the screen, a crotched log awaits its fate. A log that burns down to ashes is a happy log--it has fulfilled its purpose in life.

Outdoorsy Snippets

Yesterday Fio grabbed her loppers and entered terra incognita, the southern woods outside the chain link fence that borders Sonia's realm, and was met by a barrage of brittle branches and biting bugs.  Fio lopped off all the branches she could, but couldn't do anything about the bugs, who polka-dotted her legs with bites. Just one of the joys of country living.
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Fio has discovered what looks like another armadillo burrow.  We're the mother lode.
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Husband and Fiorella have a number of outdoor projects going on--cleaning up the southern woods, turning the meadow next to the dry creek into a picnic area, edging the cactus garden out front with bricks, talking to their neighbors about a boundary fence--and when these are finished off, there are more coming down the pike. If you come visit,we'll put you to work.

Sonia Dog Reports on Family Labors

Maybe it was the blood moon, but more likely it was the change in the weather. Mommy, who couldn't work outside more than fifteen minutes the day before the eclipse, stayed out in the yard with Daddy for more than an hour the day after.  She used her venerable loppers to trim whiskers and dead branches off oaks and elms, take out a claw-leaved bush, and nip nasty brambles down to the ground.  Then, as Daddy cut logs into fireplace-size units with his mighty chainsaw, Mommy attacked anything with a diameter of less than two inches with her pint-sized chainsaw. Tomorrow is pick-up-and-stack day.  And after that, Mommy and Daddy will tackle the huge logs rotting at the top of the property.

I lay on the porch and supervised, of course--when I could stay awake. Humans can be so boring.