Aches and Pains

I realize I need to exercise more, but sometimes I can take it too far... a little over the top as it were. This morning, there was a reasonable walk up the local hill... a good walk of about 1 hour in the pre-dawn light. A fair bit of huffing, but nothing out of the ordinary. I could still talk and breathe, no problem...

This afternoon, something more strenuous!! A friend has a bunch of beetle-killed in stacked along the back fence from the previous owners. Owners who just cut down the dead pines, bucked it up into reasonable sizes and stacked it on the ground, in rows about 30 feet long and 3 pieces deep. Suffice to say that the wood on the top is wet... the wood sitting on the ground is wet... and some of the wood on the ends is wet! But... I have a wood-burning fireplace, and firewood is not exactly cheap in Calgary so... since she was willing to part with it, and I was willing to chop it... we tackled the pile. I am pleased to report that she has a very beautiful ax... a splitting maul it is called, with a 3 foot handle and a 6 lb head. A beautiful swing and most wood just parts without a complaint. Mind you, the wet wood, more often than not, just went "thunk" and it took multiple swings to overpower it! An hour and a half later we have a very respectable stack of chopped wood, about 4 ft high and 10 ft long. A few Robax in my system and I think I might survive. My hips are complaining the most, but I'm curious to see how the shoulders and arms will make out tomorrow. Perhaps I am not quite the couch slug that I think I am!!!

I am grateful for friends who wish to part with their piles of wood, in order to satisfy the fireplace bug! There truly is nothing like a real, life crackling fire in the fireplace. It satisfies something within the human spirit, something deep and instinctive and fundamental to our nature. It warms us, keeps the darkness at bay, and even talks to us in snaps and crackles. Gas fireplaces, for all their niftiness, do not have the same aura around them. They are mandmade contraptions. There is something magical and divine about burning wood... something that calls to me... I have always loved to go to Kalum Lake near Terrace and burn driftwood on the beach... For this I am grateful... for the gift of fire... the gift of  the divine!!!