I’ve been neglecting The Chronicles. You might imagine something exciting has taken over my life, but no, I have just been filling my days with mundane chores. With over 1000 posts, The Chronicles have taken on something of a life of their own, with a continuous flow of visitors to older posts. The snapping cold weather we’ve been experiencing makes sitting by the fire with a good book more tempting than blogging.
After a January thaw that reduced our snow cover by half, the mercury has again recoiled to the bottom of the thermometer. We heat our house with a combination of a high-efficiency propane furnace and a wood-burning fireplace. A wood fire is very cozy, but it does require quite a bit of work. A quote, most often attributed to Thoreau, notes that wood warms you twice, once in the cutting and once in the burning.
I have many years of experience with splitting wood and would claim a modest level of proficiency. But my strength is limited. On a mild winter day, large logs defeat my best efforts. Wood splitting is a task that lends itself to cold weather. The colder the day, the easier it is to split a log. On really frosty days, the logs split easily with an effortless rap of the axe. If the temperature drops low enough, I can pretty much split the toughest log in the woodpile! And, as Thoreau noted, the exercise warms you until you return back inside and settle beside the fire with your book.
Willow House Chronicles 
of course, the real test for easy splitting in the cold would be Elm – are you processing any Elm? Very exciting – we had to drive to Burlington for a meeting on these “coldest days in 8 years” and the challenge was to get everything that would be harmed by freezing into the one room where one stove would be fed, and a little electric heater would be glowing. The assistant who was going to run the stove didn’t manage to get the fire started in brief visits, but nothing was seriously frozen. Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills is going to be exciting tonight!
Indeed, I love how the wood just cracks open so much easier when it’s that cold! But I REALLY must get some newer leather gloves with NO holes in the fingers!
Fred: Happy Mudpuppying tonight!
Fred, Hope you had a good mudpuppy night. Still too cold for me, but I’ll make it out there one of these weeks. I’m glad everything survived your absence. I don’t know that I’ve run into elm wood. What we have now is mostly ash, which we purchase from a local farmer.
Grammom, it’s true, it is satisfying work when the wood splits sweetly. I invest in a new pair of dollar store mittens every fall. Thanks for your earlier comments! This was Pat and Tony’s place. They moved out west for a while, but are back in this part of the world again now.