I walked out to the wood pile the other day. It gave me pleasure to gaze at the three cords I had chopped and split over the past 12 months. Twenty inch lengths neatly stacked in my wood crib made from green timbers from a since shuttered sawmill. True two bys….

The wood pile signals warmth and security. It shall burn hot and bright.

My inner warmth for the pending warmth conjures up images of my forebears, whose sole source of heat was likely wood…up in Kingfield, Maine. Photos show their lined faces – the hard life of far north Yankees.

It’s my eighth year of cutting and splitting three cords a season for my wood stove. At 63, I may transition to buying firewood, but I always try to squeeze out one more season cutting and splitting the wood myself. Bad back and now cancer might hold me back in 2013. I pray not.

Honest work, hard, close to the heart. Alive.

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