Exhausted

More light snow but I still work on firewood most of the day, cleaning up the woodshed. Odd knots accumulate and I keep a hot fire going using chunks as small as a baseball. Slippery Elm and Osage Orange chunks burn incredibly well. Picked up a good heavy plastic trash can, with lid, from the dumpster at the lake, a 35 gallon Rubbermaid, with a hole in the bottom. Perfect chunk container. A strange beam at the bottom of the pile (should finish cutting up the Wrack Show next weekend, I am getting sorted out) that I had forgotten. Hornbeam or Ironwood or something, incredibly dense, and someone, it seems, had been practicing with a circular saw, or cutting four inch slabs from an eight-by-eight, for a use I can't imagine. I could imagine them as thick tiles, or even as an entry floor, but I don't know what they were thinking. All four sides are cut as deep as a contractor's saw will cut. On the right bed of coals, one of these slabs will burn a very long time. I cut one off today, with a handsaw, it heated my bath water, cooked my dinner, and is still going strong. Split several difficult crotches today, quite a long time with the maul and sledge and wedges. These are good logs for late a cold night. All day I'm melting snow in one pot and heating water in the canning kettle, finally stop working outside just before four, come into a warm house, strip down, and scrub every inch of my body, shave, wash my hair, trim my nails. I'm sore, mostly in my upper body, but I'm getting into shape: walking the driveway, swinging the maul. I drink a mug of chicken stock while I fix dinner, squirrel and gravy on toast. Silly bastards. I parboil the body parts, dry them, dredge them in egg and then pulverized sweet potato chips, fry them in olive oil. De-bone the meat, scrape the mast, cook them together until I can't stand it any longer, serve myself on toast. Squirrel makes good gravy. In a moment of clarity I make more grits. I'll fry these tomorrow, and I wonder why everyone thinks they're getting old, I want an acorn recipe, I don't care where it comes from. The first step is always the hardest.