You Don't Know Love Until....

Last weekend was weekend #2 of cutting wood for us.  Actually,  it was splitting and stacking weekend.  We did much better getting out to work before it got too hot.  On Saturday, we split the first half of the wood which was smaller rounds - not to heavy - no problemo.  On Sunday however, we got into some of the larger rounds.  We were using a wood splitter that a wonderful lady from church let us borrow.  Jerry ran the splitter and put the rounds on to get split.  I was responsible for making sure the rounds were within reach for Jerry, flipping the rounds in the splitter once it had gone through the first time and then throwing the split wood into the trailer.  All started out good, things were going quite well and a few hours in my arms, back and legs started getting tired.  That's nothing - I work through tired all the time.  I kept plugging along.  A couple hours later - my arms were pretty much like wet noodles.  This was not such a big deal with the flipping of the wood in the splitter and the throwing of the wood into the trailer.  Where this became an issue was when I was throwing the wood towards Jerry so he could reach the rounds to put them in the splitter.  Do you see where this is going?  So - I threw a round towards the wood splitter and Jerry - and wow - my spaghetti arms aim seemed to be off a bit.  I almost hit Jerry!  Me:  "Oops!  Sorry!"  Jerry:  Blank stare at me - no words.  At this point I proceeded to have a very serious conversation with spaghetti arm A and B.  Problem solved.  Things went smoothly for about 20 minutes and then I threw a round and it hit Jerry's foot.  Me:  Blank stare, followed by batting eyes...  Jerry:  Ignored me.  I did a shake that probably looked very similar to a wet dog shaking to try to get the arms back into shape.  No such luck.  Over the next hour Jerry had to dodge approximately 6 pieces of flying wood.  And finally we were done.  On the way towards the house in the truck - I casually brought up the subject of the near misses and how sorry I was.  Jerry's response:  "You don't know love until someone throws firewood at you."

And that friends is why I love him so much!

Preparing for Winter

So after the birthday party I told you about here, Jerry and I got up the next morning to do one of my favorite things in the whole wide world!  Cutting Firewood!  I am not joking - I love it!  It is my favorite winter prep activity.  This is probably because it reminds me of being a little girl.  My mom and dad would make a day of wood cutting - we would have a camp fire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows - and of course work - but it was so fun and didn't feel like work!

Jerry, on the other hand, does NOT love cutting firewood.  It is one of his least favorite things to do.  (I WILL convert him - just wait - he doesn't know what is going to hit him!)  But he is still a good sport about it.  We have oil and wood heat in our home.  I, of course, prefer wood heat.  I love the smell, the sound, the feel - back to the childhood thing...  However, I am pretty sure that if I did not love fire wood as much as I do, Jerry would prefer to go the oil heating route.  Lucky for me he loves me!!

So we were down over the hill Sunday morning and probably didn't get out there quite as early as we should have.  Jerry had used the tractor to pull all of the cut trees down to the landing so we could do all the cutting and chopping there.  (Side note:  I also pulled some of the trees down with the tractor and Jerry used those darn fancy-dancy hand signals on me again in an attempt to direct where I was going.  One of these days he is going to realize that I just don't care to understand them and he will resort to my pointing, screaming and jumping technique of directing.  I can't wait!!  Hope I have the camera!!)  Jerry was cutting the trees into firewood length portions and I was chucking them out of his way.  I decided that instead of just making a pile of wood, I should stack it, it would be easier when we got to the cutting stage.  So I would chuck some wood and then go and stack it.  Repeat, repeat.  At first I had several small stacks but the longer we went the stacks came together.  This is what my stack looked like.  It reminds me of a meandering brook - but made out of wood of course.

My Pile of Wood

Like I said, we probably didn't get out there as early as we should have to be doing the firewood thing.  So, three hours into it we were in the heat of the day.  Lovely.  I am very fair and do not do so well with sun and heat.  But here was my handsome man, cutting away, I couldn't let him know I was getting tired!

Love a man with a chainsaw!

I bent over to chuck some wood, raised up and whew!  Feeling a little dizzy!  MUST KEEP PUSHING!  Can't let Jerry know I am feeling faint...  I threw some more wood, did some more stacking, stumbled a few times - heat was making me crazy!   At that point, my vision was blurry, even the dogs were looking at me with concern. 

Throwing Wood

And then it happened, Jerry lost a bolt or nut or something on the chainsaw!  HALLELUJAH!!  Me:  "What, we can't cut any more wood?  Nooo - I was just getting into the swing of things."  Jerry:  "Well I could run it a bit more without the bolt/nut/something, but not for long."  Me:  "Oh no, we don't want to take a chance on breaking the chainsaw.  Do you have any spare bolts/nuts/somethings in the shop?"  (Please say no, please say no!)  Jerry:  "Nope, gonna have to get them at the chainsaw shop.  We'll just call it a day."  Me:  "Well darn!  I was hoping to get this all done today.  I guess there is always next weekend!"  (On the inside I was jumping for joy - but played it pretty cool, if I do say so myself!)

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