If you have any interest in firewood, this book has the information, from the best time to fell trees, to chain saws, axes, wood stoves, how to stack, the best trees to use, to when the split and dried wood is ready to be put into the woodshed, and more. Though the book did not include the down-home wisdom which is the title to this post, which was relayed to me by the Baptist preacher/sawmill owner/fresh egg seller from whom I occasionally purchase what is referred to as “store bought” wood in Norway.
One interesting fact, amongst many, within Norwegian Wood is the weight of dried firewood, as the Norwegians study the use of firewood rather intensely. On average, a cord of dried firewood weighs 1 ton, which explains why my lower back has been rather tender since I was in the Keweenaw. My friend and I put up four cords in total, including one whose moisture content was in the 25 percent range, so I figured we each lifted about 5 tons of firewood in total, because each stick was handled on more than one occasion during the cutting, splitting and stacking process.
Here’s a few photos of the firewood we put up. I recommend the book highly.
Two cords stacked on the porch ready for the wood stove.
One cord stacked needing a bit more drying time before being ready for the wood stove.
Auxiliary cord, just in case the winter is particularly fierce.
“As a bloviating senator of nearly half a century, Biden is thoroughly accustomed to never being held responsible for a single thing he says. He’s dined out on the death of his wife and daughter in a car accident for 50 years, blithely accusing the other driver of being drunk, which he wasn’t, among the many, many other malicious lies he’s told. He casually slandered good men like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas and never lost a moment of sleep over his scurrilous remarks. Biden is emblematic of our parlous politics, the worm in the rotten apple who has finally made his journey from the calyx to the pedicel and emerged into the sunlight, a doddering old fool, vacant-eyed (except when animated by hatred), slack-jawed, wandering aimlessly in search of another hand to shake or another pocket to pick, which as a lifelong politician is all he knows how to do.”
Bear in mind, that most, if not all, politicians are cut from the same cloth.
The scent of fresh wood
is among the last things you will forget
when the veil fails.
The scent of fresh white wood
in the spring sap time:
as thought life itself walked by you,
with dew in its hair.
That sweet and naked smell
kneeling woman-soft and blond
in the silence inside you,
using your bones for
a willow flute.
With the hard frost beneath your tongue
you look for fire to light a word,
and know, mild as southern wind in the mind,
there is still one thing in the world
you can trust.
“We must be men of the Scriptures, so that we can know what the content of the biblical system is. Every day of our lives we should be studying the Scriptures to make sure that what we are presenting really is the Christian position, and that we are presenting it as well as possible in our day.”
Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, Inter-Varsity Press, Chicago, IL, 1968, Second American Printing January 1969, pg. 128
According to IProperty Management, the average length of homeownership is 16 years, though they list many variables which affect that 16 year number. This Labor Day weekend marks the 30th year that the Lovely Melis and I have lived in our home, so we are beating that average handily. As an added bonus over these past 30 years, the value of our home has increased by 5 times our original purchase price, a fact which we’ve leveraged in the past for additional gains as it increased in price. We’re not planning on going anywhere.
When I first saw this critter, while wading downstream, I thought maybe it was a fisher, as it was perched over my little crick staring down into a seam in the water as if attempting to snag a trout for dinner. It’s tail, which is the longest tail I’ve ever seen on a black squirrel, also threw me off, not to mention the size of the critter itself. I waded to within 10 feet of it before scampered back into the tag alders.
The data from the James Webb Telescope is causing a wee bit of panic amongst astronomers and cosmologists:
“To everyone who sees them, the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to most professional astronomers and cosmologists, they are also extremely surprising—not at all what was predicted by theory. In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!”
Why do the JWST’s images inspire panic among cosmologists? And what theory’s predictions are they contradicting? The papers don’t actually say. The truth that these papers don’t report is that the hypothesis that the JWST’s images are blatantly and repeatedly contradicting is the Big Bang Hypothesis that the universe began 14 billion years ago in an incredibly hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since. Since that hypothesis has been defended for decades as unquestionable truth by the vast majority of cosmological theorists, the new data is causing these theorists to panic.”
Well, the Big Bang is just a theory, just as Darwin’s evolutionary musings remain a theory.
My Lovely Melis grows State Fair Zinnias every year along the south side of the house. I just make sure they’re watered on a daily basis. Melis gets many, many compliments from neighborhood walkers, and during the month of August, they are everywhere in our home.
“Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations.”
“Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders. Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars”
Free Men Free Minds
