January 16, 2011

7:57 p.m.

Swinging the Maul

As Pioneer Woman, my skill sets are not complete until I've chopped wood, carried water, gathered eggs, made bread by hand and knit a sweater.

So far I've done two of those things on my own property. I don't have to carry water, though I keep a few jugs on hand from a local spring, because since I moved in my water has been kind of rusty. It's drinkable, but dingy, especially when there's a bathtub full. It also stains the toilet in short order.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago my water began running suddenly clear. I can't explain it, but the source has cleared up and I'm now putting tap water into the electric kettle.

I have gathered eggs from next door, but I don't think that will count until they're my own chickens, in my own coop, in my own yard. I did, however, score a dozen today -- they have rather a glut, as a friend who also has chickens has more eggs than he knows what to do with, so he gave Pearl eight dozen the other day, saying, "Just get rid of these! Do whatever you want with them!" Rose took them to her office and sold all of them in one day. So there are suddenly eggs everywhere, where for the last couple of months I haven't been able to snag any. I've actually been eating store-bought eggs, which pale so in comparison it's a completely different experience. I am rich in eggs and rich in water.

And I am rich in wood. Today I learned how to swing a maul, to split the big pieces. Once I started getting the hang of it, I loved it. My brother in law is Poetry in Motion when he swings a maul. He has these long arms, and his aim is fantastic and he knows how to read wood. He taught me how to look for the natural cracks, and to avoid inside knots. It's a combination of baseball, golf and basketball, the coordination, the swing, the landing. I think of Joe again, the young man I never met who died in this driveway, whose golf balls we found in the meadow (and in the chimney flue). I swing in honor of him.

I have a hard time starting my chainsaw after it's been run a while and then shut off a while. Karl fiddled with it quite a bit (once it was simply out of gas) but had similar trouble. He's convinced it's just tight because it's new, and will loosen up in time. I really like it overall. It's pretty maintenance-free, light enough for me to hoist again and again, and does the job.

I worked all afternoon until my arms were weak. I processed maybe two-fifths of what was on the truck. It supposedly was in the 20s today, but I think it was a wee bit warmer, and sunny and bright. Because we were working, we took our jackets off and laid our scarves upon them. Just work gloves and a sweater. I thought to myself, "It's too bad I have to work tomorrow. I could get so much more of this done." It wasn't until late afternoon that Karl told me it's a holiday for our company. I wasn't sure we had it off. Unfortunately, as a part time employee, I won't get paid for the day. But I WILL have a lot more wood, and a rick to put in the living room. The rest is on the back porch.

The furnace just kicked on. Rose and Karl are coming soon to help me start the wood stove for the first time. I wanted someone else here, in case I don't know what I'm doing. It's all installed, I've stuffed insulation into the flue around the pipe so that it's all tight (having taken the paper off, because I already had a little chimney fire in the pellet stove pipe once and a bit of the paper caught on fire -- not threatening, as it turned out, but it was scary to me at the time) (we altered the pipe so there's a cleanable "T" now, so that shouldn't happen again), and I have wood of various sizes, newspaper, and pine shavings from installing the storm windows. I remember I was a little nervous the first time we lit the pellet stove. I feel the same nervousness now, with this new fire. Once I get used to it I'll be fine, how to lay it out, how to bank it, where to set the damper. I just need a little hand-holding at the start.

And once it's going, if I can keep wood on hand, I will not have to use the furnace ANY MORE this winter. We can avoid getting oil again until late Fall.

I have come close to making bread, I suppose; I'm on a campaign to make the most fabulous corn muffins possible. I'm not there yet, but each batch is a little more scrumptious. Karl will keep eating them until the last ones are stale and hard, and call them "Corn Dodgers" after the movie True Grit, and dip them in his tea. When I'm a little more settled in my makeshift kitchen I will make a loaf of bread. My bread machine is on the fritz now, so I will go back to grandmother's way and knead it by hand. In summer, when it's warm and the dough will rise.

As for knitting the sweater, that will surely come in its time. I'm making finger puppets right now.