Firewood

Friday morning I was back in the woods. On the farm where we hunt deer, they have two houses that they heat with wood. So for the privilege of being able to hunt on their property, we help them cut and split firewood each year. It was a cold, crisp, sunny late fall morning when about eight of us gathered around three log splitters and went to work on some trees that had fallen in the woods. Oak and locust logs had been cut into sections and dragged into the pasture earlier and were waiting for laborers. Some of the sections were three to four feet in diameter. It took a tractor to get them positioned so the splitters could do the splitting. I had dressed warm, but it wasn't long before I started shedding clothes. We got a lot done fast, filling 2 tractor draw trailers and a pickup bed full of firewood. We moved to another spot in the woods and split another large pile before finishing the morning with a bowl of hot chili and a turkey sandwich. All the while the all male group is telling hunting stories and discussing various hunting equipment and ammunition. It is always a positive to be on good terms with the local Sheriff, who is a bow hunter and was included in the group.
We don't have a fireplace or a wood burning stove, or I could have brought some home for ourselves. I enjoyed the day and I enjoy a fireplace fire on a cold evening, but I'm not sure that I would want to work that hard to heat our house. I remember as a little boy, we heated our house with coal. I would ride in the truck with my dad each year to get a load of coal. We scooped it down a chute into our "coal room" in the basement, and then each morning and evening in the winter, Dad would make sure the stoker was full. It would auger coal into the big old furnace as needed to keep the fire going. On a regular basis he would have to clean out the cinders. He would carry them outside and use them to fill holes in the road or driveway. Heating with coal was a dirty job.

I think LP gas works just fine to heat our house.
A big white truck pulls in our yard a couple times a winter and fills our tank. All I have to do is make sure the pilot light is lit.


As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife.
Proverbs 26:21