Growing old gracefully … in the Alaska sunshine

Woodcutting mayhem

March has always been the best month of the year at the East Pole. One of the attractions means
sunlight on the deck in the afternoon, about an hour when it's warm enough to sit out there and have a beer while wearing a t-shirt.

This year, though, the times have been tougher. March also provides the best weather for firewood gathering, but this year between falling and almost breaking my back and overcast weather that dumped heavy snow for days, I've fallen way behind in firewood.

Then eariler this week, I broke my snowmachine. Don't get me wrong; I was thankful I didn't break me as I have the past two years. But just as the sun began to break through, I had to go away, as it turns out all the way the Eagle River for a repair. I mean who knew driving a machine hard against the parking brake would gouge the drive belt enough to make a sound like the whole machine was coming apart?

I went my to favorite place and they had a three-week backlog, but they were kind enough to call their other store and it turned out that one only had a three-day deadline. I went there hoping for three days but fully expecting three weeks, given the clunking sound the machine was making. But three days later they called and said chunks had been gouged from my drive belt. (for those of you who don't know, this is a simple fix) Here's how simple. It is one thing you always carry a spare. The guy said they didn't have one in stock and it would take a week to get one. I told him I've got one! End result, a fix that I expected to take three weeks and cost more than $300, took three days and cost me $60. How often does that happen?

Ok so back to aging gracefully. Over the years as I have cut firewood around here, I've always looked for blowdowns, or dead standing. I have tried to maintain the forest. I don't want to look out my window and see a bunch of stumps (I do cut the stumps eventually), nor do I want to see a huge clearing as far as the view goes.

So, because of weather and injury I have fallen behind on wood cutting.

Then while I was hanging out in the Outside  waiting for my snowmachine repair, I got to thinking and here's what I came up with.

First I am worried about next winter's firewood. Secondly I am absolutely pissed at missing the first sunny week we've had this March. And, I am planning what to do when I get back, mostly about the firewood situation. And that's when it hit me.

So here we go to the point where all this comes together. There's this huge birch tree about 50 feet in front of the cabin. It's one of those I have never considered cutting. So a thought process began like this. I am 75 years old. If I started cutting now and cut every day for the rest of my life, when I die, nobody would probably see any difference in these woods at all. A Decision made.

Today that tree came down. Huge. It took me longer to clear where it fell across the trail than it did to cut it down.

So the accumulation of the days is this. I try to put at least twice as much firewood into the piles as I take out to burn every day. Today from the two other trees I've cut, three times as much went back into the piles.

When the time to quit for the day I came inside to just lie down and listen to the radio. After about half an hour I walked outside. The moment I opened the door I was hit with something like a heat wave. At that point I realized what cutting down that last tree had meant.

So just to test, I made my first single-malt slushee of the year and sat in my new big chair and enjoyed THREE hours of sunshine instead of one. Now if Thoreau could only see this. That tree warmed me once just from getting out of the way, with four more times to go.

And then there is the moment of grace. I prefer that to the moment of zen. I am sitting in that chair, with my single-malt slushee, my feet up on the box that houses my generator for warmth and quiet. A chickadee landed on the uplifted toe of my boot. He perched there for a while, looking around for where he wanted to land next. And at that moment in that place in the quiet of the forest, with the bird on my boot and the sun in my face, I felt it. While he stood there I realized I had reached that state of grace at least for a precious moment. So glad I didn't miss that.

 Firewood  and revery