"I asked my father for a dollar for the school picnic, he told me how he killed a grizzly with his loose-leaf notebook." - Bill Cosby, Himself

First bit of firewood for the year. I know, I know, but it's a start.

It is time to get some wood for the winter. I know that the snow just melted, but nevertheless, it won’t be long at all until snow is covering the ground again.

I figure I need to get about 14 cords. A cord of wood (for whatever obscure reason involving monks, dwarves, and the wheel width of the Roman Chariot) is 4’ by 4’ by 8’. I think the French measure it in liters. Or litres. Whatever. In America, 14 cords or wood is 1792 cubic feet of wood, or a 4’ by 4’ stack that’s 112 feet long. I use two foot pieces, so that’s 2/3 of a football field long. Regardless, the average I need to hit (in the hundred days of summer) is 18 cubic feet of wood a day.

I can’t go cut wood (sadly) every day. So I have to hit it when I can.

Last Saturday, I went out for the first time. I got together with a friend and we loaded up our pickups and headed out. Into each pickup went a child, one of his, and one of mine.

Off to the woods we went. We drove for miles and miles on what passes for smooth road in Alaska (picture hitting a bump that makes your head graze the roof of a full-size pickup a full quarter mile before the “Rough Road” sign. That’s Alaska smooth.

We went and then turned off. After following directions, we ended up at a fork in the road – one side said, “NO EXIT, NO TURNAROUND, NO KIDDING” and the other was plainly marked as the area to cut wood. We didn’t investigate to see if we’d have to back down eight miles of road, and instead went into a maze of logging roads cut throughout Alaska – so deep into the forest that the “Can You Hear Me Now” guy would have heard nothing, until he heard the grizzly bear fastening a little bib with a picture of a human using a cell phone around his enormous neck.

(An aside – I thought about taking a .45 with me for bear protection, but then realized I was taking a chainsaw. Now if I tangled with the bear and he took the saw, then that would be about the ultimate in danger – a grizzly bear with a chainsaw. Dang, that’s scary. Because he’d have a bib on, with picture of me on it. I think I see a new direct-to-video movie out of this . . . Chainsaw Grizzly™. Next time I’m taking the gun.)

Anyhow, we started cutting wood, and loading the vehicles up. The chainsaws worked, mostly, and the sunny day was wonderful for being out in the forest. The kids did some low impact exploring.

I filled up the pickup a bit with the wood shown above. It was enough for a good start, though it didn’t come all the way up the sides. Just before we got back to the main road, my friend and I stopped to palaver, and The Boy walked over to his pickup, and got in. Since we were doing burgers at my place about an hour and a half later, my friend said it would be okay if they took him home to play.

So, alone I drove home.

I got there, and walked in the door. I waited about five minutes while The Mrs. frustrated me by not asking where The Boy was at. I finally blurted this out, and she said she figured he was outside, playing.

Dang The Mrs.

I never got to say, “Oops, forgot him in the forest.”

Foiled again.