Random thoughts from the wood lot

Progress, but there are some hella big chunks to split yet. That orange handle is on the 16-, now-18 pound maul.

It's been a while since a coherent line of thought found its way into this aging brain. That said, maybe it's time for one of those rambling, unrelated thoughts collections.

Whoever first called a weakling a pansy doesn't know pansies; 

they have to be the toughest flowers in the garden. These  

were planted in last year's garden if not earlier than that.

To begin with on my birthday last week a truck delivered a cord of birch firewood; well, it will be firewood once I get it split and it dries for a while. I always look forward to time at the chopping block and take some measure of pride that at my advancing age I can still do this. I have to admit though that every year that maul seems to get a little heavier and I always blamed that on aging but this year I came across a much better excuse. What I recall from when I bought it almost 30 years ago was it weighed 16 pounds. Now, I can swing a 16-pound maul like a 20-year-old, but the other day I was passing the kitchen scale and put the maul on it.  You know what? It weighs 18 pounds. That sure explains why it was much harder to swing this year than in the past. (Sarcastic emoji)

So I have been spending some time at the block every day for a while. Today I tried the Apple watch and its exercise monitoring function. I passed my daily quota for exercise and in the process burned almost 300 calories, and still have several more days to go.

While I was outside chopping wood, my friend Joe May posted this tidbit on facebook:

"While on a road trip between Fairbanks and Whitehorse on a moonlit winter night in the long ago John Balzar, author of "Yukon Alone", was riding with me...two of us on some mission for the Quest. John was a writer for the LA Times and was both covering the race and gathering material for a book. The road that night was a riot of rabbits reveling in the moonlight, as they sometimes do. Somewhere around Haines Junction I commented that there were more road-killed rabbits on the Canadian side of the border than on the Alaska side. A pause and John dropped a pregnant, "why?", into the darkness of the truck cab. I don't remember exactly what I told him but the explanation was the highlight of a shameless career of “putting on” journalists from south of “fifty”. Over the next forty miles of potholes, frost-heaves, and flattened rabbits I convinced him that it was fact, that there was evidence proving that Canadian rabbits were slower than Alaskan rabbits...and he believed it. There's no moral to this story. It's just a cautionary tale.. .probably something to do with the veracity of salty old dog drivers. Tim Jones and Slim Randles would understand."

Nuthatch

My own comment on it was: Once in a while I would tell people on the boat we seldom saw whales when it was raining because they didn't like getting wet.

Now for something serious. There is an offensive word in this, one that certainly is not politically correct. However it is a direct quote from a book and the whole point might be lost if it were omitted. So here goes.

Every time I see some of the vitriolic hatred aimed at President Obama this anecdote comes to mind.  Of course most of those insults aimed at the president often are proceeded by "I'm not a racist, but …" And we all know they are. Anyway, the anecdote occurs in the first chapter of Joseph Heller's "Catch 22." In it Yossarian and his buddy Dunbar have taken refuge in the hospital attempting to avoid going on any more missions that have been added to how many they have to fly before they can go home. The man in white was encased in plaster casts so fully no one could see any part of him. A tube came out of his mouth and another out of his groin, one for giving him fluids and one for taking them away. The tubes led to jars and when the evacuation one was full the nurses simply switched the jars. Another patient called the Texan would talk to the soldier in white but without ever hearing a response. Then one day attendants came and took him away.

The group discussed his demise until Dunbar said the word "murderer." After which Dunbar and Yossarian gang up on the Texan calling him alternately a killer and a murderer until finally Dunbar shouts: "You killed him because he was a nigger."

Now, no one could have known that, but that was the blatant accusation and to my mind that is what all these critics of President Obama are at least thinking if not saying in their attacks on the man or maybe we should be shouting that back at them. So, that's off my mind now that it's written.

JJ Watt prepares to split. Here's the video.

Jennifer Lawrence
 in "Winter's Bone."

So back to the woodpile. A year or so ago I wrote a post about how I was impressed at the authenticity with which Jennifer Lawrence chopped wood in the movie "Winter's Bone." It was the little motion of going up on the tiptoes before bringing the axe full force down onto the wood. Well, now
there are three of us. There's a TV commercial going around where Houston Texans' defensive end JJ Watt, who has some legitimate woods cred, is chopping wood in a forest. And, how does a 288-pound defensive end in the National Football League swing his axe? He goes up on his toes just before he brings it down the same way a 73-year-old skinny Alaskan and a beautiful young Hollywood star do it. Awesome sauce! But wait. Has it come to this? Do JJ Watt and I BOTH swing an axe like a girl?

Follow the line of sight to the upper left corner and that's about
as close as we got.

Birds have used up a 40-pound bag of sunflower seeds already and it hasn't even snowed yet. They get so frantic sometimes they will land on me while I am filling the feeders. Of course when we tried to take a picture of that the other day, no one would approach, hence that obscure one here.

Still trying to avoid the politics of the day, but it's difficult. There was one bright spot and that resulted in the picture to the right. If it needs an explanation, you need to do some catching up.

The days are growing shorter and darker (wait, can growing be used to describe diminishing?). Anyway it's still two months until the solstice – not my favorite time of year at all. That's another benefit of the woodpile, makes me go outside in what daylight there is and that helps keep the spirits up somewhat.

PDF Catch 22

Katniss and the chopping block