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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Where do I sign up for my merit badge?

So... the split firewood pile was running low, but I didn't worry too much about it because I figured it would warm up enough to split wood soon. Besides, worst-case scenario, I could just crank up the oil stove instead.

Turns out I ran out of split wood last night, when the temperatures were still in the -30s. Dang! So this morning I cranked up the oil stove. But you know what? I hate having hot, dry air blow at me. That's one of the reasons I only barely heat my car, and bundle up instead. I detest hair dryers, and I absolutely abhor doing laundry because clothes dryers have the same effect on me--as the clothes come out, I feel like they suck all of the moisture out of my hands as I am folding them. So I thought, I could split enough wood for the weekend in 20 minutes. 20 minutes of discomfort is surely worth having a nice, toasty cabin filled with radiant heat and no hot air blowing around for the whole weekend! So I put on an extra pair of pants and my deep-discount -40 boots and headed out. Not bad. Really, not bad at all. I told myself that if any body part even started to feel cold and I knew I'd flirt with frostbite, I'd quit, but nothing did. I drank a lot of hot water with honey in between loads, but eventually filled the entire wood rack! Yay!

So now I can say I've split wood at -35. And I never intend to do so again! Next Summer, I will split two cords and be done for the entire following Winter. Yay! All I have to say now is:

1) Dang.

2) Hot water. Honey. Hot water. Honey. It's great that I can get honey for $50 a gallon from Alaska Feed.

3) Still lovin' that way-cool splitting axe of mine. And with the composite handle, my hands stay toasty-warm!

4) Dang

5) I have to pee.

3 comments:

Rena said...

badass.

Anonymous said...

$50/gallon? That seems crazy expensive.

Arvay said...

Does it? Well, a quart of honey at the supermarket costs like ten bucks, right? But that's the cheap stuff, at $40 a gallon. So $50 a gallon for premium wild honey seems a reasonable price to me.