Cabin Life
Behind and around our cabin is what firefighters call a “jackpot”. This is a conglomerate, a tangle, a giant mess of downed trees and limbs. Let’s not think too hard about their nomenclature.
I’ve been raking, dragging, cutting and organizing this in incremental sessions throughout the past 2 years. It is gradually decreasing, gradually getting cleaned up. Of course Trail Guy also works on this, approaching it a bit differently than me.
A handsaw rather than a chainsaw gives me a lot of upper-body exercise and makes some firewood to share with neighbors. My pace is laughable to Trail Guy, but I consider myself to be a rather productive tortoise.
Then I thought about swinging an axe to bust through a pretty stout limb, something I have only done once before in my life (a Three Rivers neighbor’s tree blew down in a storm, blocking her driveway, and no one with a chainsaw was available so I bravely marched down to her house in the rain with my trusty axe and got it into pieces that we could drag away.)
This piece required a lot of whaling, slamming, swinging, and wondering if I would be able to git-‘er-dun. When I got it this far, I asked Trail Guy for some input, guessing he’d bust through in 10 swings. He swung 15 times (yes, I counted), handed the axe back and told me to use a sharper one instead.
So I swapped axes, and went after it again, this time busting through with a shout of victory. The sharper axe was more effective.
I’ve asked Trail Guy to teach me how to sharpen an axe this summer, (mis)quoting Abraham Lincoln about spending an hour sharpening an axe and an hour chopping wood instead of spending 2 hours chopping wood.
Thus we conclude another look at my quirky cabin life. Perhaps next time I will be able to persuade Trail Guy to fire up his chainsaw, but most likely he will be working on neighbors’ stoves/water heaters/toilets/faucets/refrigerators. There has been way too much of that so far this summer. I helped with a water heater, and took photos and measured for a stove and another water heater to be replaced… I’m good for more than just some axe-swingin’.
6 Comments
Well my goodness, you are awesome! I’ll bet chopping up a tree would be great for letting out frustrations!
Michelle, I was astonished by how much I enjoyed just whaling on it! I love to split wood, but chopping is a whole new level of focused aggression.
You go girl!!
Thanks, Tom. Definitely tortoise-like…
I had to Google nomenclature. Never too old to learn. I had guessed in my mind it had something to do with “brushpiles” and their flame ability. We know about brushpiles in Alabama. Don’t get close when burning because snakes run out!
Kathy, that sounds hideous—snakes AND fire! I many have misused “nomenclature”; I meant it in “don’t let the name ‘jackpot’ as it relates to fire become too alarming”. Probably should have thought more about that sentence.