I’m nowhere near done amassing wood. So what? I’ve started in the right direction. I haven’t eaten an onion sandwich, chased phantom bridge mats from Craigslist, or been financially screwed (see: last year’s bridge mat saga). Nor have I broken a leg or given up. Plus, I can always buy heat… which is what damn near everyone in the civilized world does. (You know you’re being obstreperous when you consider buying something you need a bit of a failure. With age and experience I’m slowly seeing that providing 80% of your needs on your own isn’t so much 20% failure as… well I’m rationalizing here but the zombies haven’t attacked yet so I’m not going to sweat the small stuff.)
In my defense, I’m counting only processed fuel. I don’t consider firewood “in the bag” until it has been felled, bucked, split, hauled, and stacked. (Nor do I count venison as “done” until it’s in the freezer or a fish caught until it’s on the grill.) It’s common for a redneck such as myself to have a 20 cord trainwreck lying in a field somewhere and call that “my woodpile” despite the fact that it’ll take 50 man hours before you get one damn BTU.
Also, when you sweat and grunt and suffer, you appreciate things more. Where most people see “some wood… who gives a shit” I see a complex texture of past valiant efforts and future warm winter nights. Here’s a photo of a cord and a half (more or less):
Just a pile of wood… meh.
Now with Curmudgeon vision:
I moved every damn ounce of that shit and I know every molecule by name.