Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Wood gathering and fishing

This morning I drove to Henrys Lake to do some fishing and found it very slow until about 10 when I found a pocket of fish just north of Duck Creek in 11 feet of water. The fish there made the trip worthwhile and as always, or almost always, I got a load of wood for heating next winter.
They say when you burn wood for heat it warms you twice - once when you get it and once when it burns. I disagree. Sawing and loading firewood does not warm you - it boils you over. You have to put on mosquito repellent twice or three times, because your cooling system washes it off.

On the way out of the woods, I stopped to take a picture of the load and there stood a doe Mule deer with a fawn. The doe stood motionless for several minutes and as soon as I moved to try to get a better picture of the fawn, they high-tailed it.
All while I was cutting wood, this Red (pine) squirrel chewed me out. I was hoping he would chew some wood for me to load.

A great day with a few added blessings. One of those blessing was that I missed a skunk that ran across the road in front of me at 4 a.m. while I was headed to Henrys Lake. Awesome.

3 comments:

Birding is Fun! said...

I have fond memories of gathering firewood with my dad and uncle as a young boy. Getting up at 3am and heading up to Cougar Mountain Lodge in Smith's Ferry for breakfast. The old wood carved indian is still there sitting at the bar and strangely enough, it still scares me. I was in charge of marking off the correct lengths to cut, but I was easily distracted by toads and other critters. Once our trailer rolled on the winding mountain roads spilling our load of logs all down the busy highway. That was the first and last time I ever had to use road-flares. If I remember correctly, it also burns a lot to chop the wood. Lots of work and fun-times.

Janie said...

Too bad the squirrel wouldn't help out with the cutting. You got a huge load of wood. That should be good for a few months.

Anonymous said...

Oh, if you only knew how you hit home here! My podnah and I have been doing this for years and years. And wood heats four times, when you cut it, when you split it, when you stack it and when you burn it.

Like you, we go out fishing and invariably we find a windfall someplace and it winds up in the truck.

Is thiswork? Not at all, this is prue pleasure

Jim Carten
Québec, Canada