Throwing Firewood

            The smoke has cleared into a thin veil. I have thrown open the windows, breathed deeply, taken walks, and turned my attention to neglected tasks, most notably getting the firewood in.

            Earlier in the summer Mike cut down and cut into rounds a dozen or so dead madrones I had found way the heck up the mountain from my house. To get the rounds to the house, Mike said, we (generously thereby offering his help) could throw them down the hill.

            That sounded easy. I envisioned standing at the top, watching round after round tumble to the bottom, conveniently stopping just behind the woodshed.

            Reality rectifies that vision. What looked like one long steep hill is actually broken up by slightly flat places, five stations on the journey of a piece of firewood to the woodshed. Station 1 is the top, where the cut pieces are collected. With a good throw, a heavy enough piece will go tumbling and rolling all the way down the hill, out of sight, to Station 2, a flat spot with a branch across it. Smaller pieces, lacking momentum, have to be herded.

            From Station 2 to Station 3 is my favorite run. A good throw will send a piece of wood careening down the hill, glancing off the left bank towards the right bank, where, if it is going well, it makes a turn to the left and heads on down the hill, dodging a four-foot cedar tree in the path, ricocheting off a tree on one side, spiraling to the other side, and in that fashion, like a billiard ball amok on the table, gathering speed as it goes, it tears out of sight. Mike and I at the top listen for the resounding and victorious "thunk!" when it hits the boards I had propped between trees as a barrier. 

When we hear the thunk, we cheer.

            But the run to Station 3 is also where firewood is mostly like to turn truant. An ornery piece might go partway down the hill, jump the edge, and crash through the woods. If we're lucky, it stops against a tree not too far off the track, still visible. If we're not lucky, it crashes out of sight through the woods and down the hill, giving clue to its resting place only by the sound – a soft landing in ferns, crackly in dry leaves, the distance revealed by the growing faintness of the tumble and the sinking feeling in our hearts. Any wayward log has to be retrieved immediately, before its resting place is forgotten and it becomes lost, so I walk down the hill towards the next station and detour into the woods – steep, slippery with leaves, treacherous with roots and downed trees and branches – to hunt for the miscreant log. When I find it, I lug it uphill back to the track.

            Station 4, at the flat where my water tank sits, is only a short distance from Station 3 but not very steep. I roll the rounds, urging them gently along. Mike prefers carrying them to Station 4 and then throwing them down the last part of the long journey, to Station 5, the old mining ditch just above the woodshed. 

            If we get the wood to the ditch, that is good enough. There'll be another day for carrying it to the wood splitter and stacking it in the woodshed.

            It's been a whole lot more work than I imagined. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it, if I shouldn't have just bought my firewood, after all. But then Mike comes to help. We climb the hill and start throwing firewood. Mike prefers the job of hurtling the monsters from the top of a station, 

and I'm just as glad to leave those for him to heft. I prefer the job of chasing truculent pieces through the woods, climbing up and down, up and down that steep hill. We work well together. We stay in good humor. Sweat pours into our eyes and stings the scratches on our arms and legs. When I yell encouragement to logs leaping and hopping down the hill, Mike, in mock exasperation, reminds me that firewood is an inanimate object. We work till we're exhausted. This job is undeniably a lot of work, but it is a good lesson that what is a lot of work can also be a lot of fun.