Today we had another wood-fest at the Steadings. It stopped raining this morning, so Graham went over with his chainsaw and cut up lots of the logs that had been left at the bottom of the hill. In the meantime, Brian & John set to work on chainsawing the big pile of birch logs that had been left for us. Trevor, Carol & I got busy with wheelbarrows; Graham’s nephew Aaron got busy with his uncle’s axe, splitting the logs into burnable pieces. (Normally, a 14-year old kid swinging a full-size axe would make me very nervous indeed, but Graham is a fully-qualified forester and has taught Aaron to use tools safely.) Pauline, the housewife of the Steadings, made sure that everyone was supplied with tea and bikkies. It was very hard work, and after a couple of hours, the rain returned. But there was still plenty of wood to be shifted and cut, so we had to carry on. We all ended up wet and covered in mud and sawdust; I’m stiff and aching.
But, we have some wood – even though it will have to be stacked all summer before it becomes burnable. And it was good to do some real physical work after days and days slumped in front of the computer. Of course, that means I now have to work extra hard tonight to get the computer work up to schedule!