heat

lobelia

Sunday morning early .... it's chilly and windy this morning. All my windows were closed all night and I even contemplated turning on the furnace but decided I'd hunker down in my nest with my java this morning instead.

I ordered 4 cords of split wood yesterday, which will arrive in the next week or so and I will fill my large sun porch with wood for the winter. I have a fire place insert - which is like a wood stove in your fire place opening and it has a fan that blows the hot air back into the room, the heat rises and having a fire on keeps most of my house snug and warm in winter. Burning lots of wood helps reduce the amount that I'll spend on heating oil, not to mention the charm and delight of sitting round the fire with the sweeties. I must also this week make a call to Vinney - the local chimney sweep.

To put my wood in I'll attempt to put myself in a trance like state as I fill my wheelbarrow with pieces of wood as full as possible (but not so full & heavy that I can't push it), wheel the short distance to the sun porch open window, pitch in pieces of wood until I get a big pile inside, then I'll go inside the sun porch and stack that big pile neatly in rows - like wood should be a stacked, then back outside to the wheelbarrow and start all over. I would guess with 4 cords of wood I would make this trip 287 times, or so. Hence the trance like state or a headset radio and my favourite CBC radio programs (I may have to make that purchase) or ...

There is also a possibility that the wood piling fairy may have already been cruising by my house to check on me & to see if my gigantic pile of wood has arrived. That would be Mathew, a young dynamo who in the past (several years) magically shows up at my door, soon after the wood has arrived, with a friend and miraculously completes the big, bad, ugly job in hours (instead of the days, weeks or months it might take me - my trance wears off from to time). Causing, my head to spin with awe, and a desire to throw money at him. I always pay him really well, thank him profusely and he rides off into the sunset in his muffler-less car, hip hop music blaring. But - there's no guarantee that the wood piling fairy will appear this year so I'm just mentally preparing myself for possibility that this year, I may be doing it myself. In theory, I like the idea of an independent, strong rural girl who stacks her own wood, but that picture does wear thin after the 19th or so wheelbarrow full, I'll glance back at the gigantic pile that doesn't seem to be shrinking at all and then I'll feel like I need a break or that there must be something far more pressing that I need to be doing ... and a pattern can develop.

It's all part of autumn life here in my little seaside village in Nova Scotia.