Tossing wood babies

Never mind. I know I've been lax in keeping this thing up. The last few weeks have been interesting for any number of reasons. My first class (fabrication 1) at the Revere Academy was a smashing success. It was entirely worth the money and left me wanting the day to be longer at the end of each class meeting. This class was to be a bit of a test to tell me whether I like the work well enough to continue. I've decided that I do want to persue this line of work. A call to Revere told me that they still have several places left open in the Intensive Program, one of which I mean to fill. All that remains is a down payment of $1000 and two more payments of about $3000, give or take, each. In addition to said dough, there is another grand or so of tools to purchase. I will reserve my space on Monday, then spend a bit of time in the bank discussing a loan with the fine people there. Hopefully they will be kind.

The cold of the past week or so has seriously depleted my stock of firewood. The Stangelands have put me to work draining the water out of all the trucks, tractors, and other vintage bits of machinery. In order to keep from freeziing to death, I already rummaged my neighbor's dumpster for scrap ends of wood from his barn building project. They burned quickly. I then took a load of very well seasoned (just starting to go punky) firewood from the right of way in the canyon. We picked up enough wood to completely bottom out my springs in the BMW. Once I emptied the trunk (leaving the back seat full) the car rode more smoothly. The next day found me back in the canyon for a meeting of the Niles Planning Committee. Since I was there, the trunk was reloaded. I lit a fire with it that burned for a bit less than a week before I ran low on wood again. The last two days were a bit cold. Today I returned to the canyon for my usual day of working on the right of way. We went to a stand of almond trees that have been dead for the last three years. Since they were still standing upright, they did not have enough moisture to begin rotting. Again I loaded my trunk. There was enough wood left (I piled it behind Blake's Palace) to give me at least two more carloads. It is wonderfully dry and splits like a dream. The wood is very hard, and yet very brittle. The axe makes it almost fly apart. I can only imagine it must be wonderful to carve. Perhaps I will try a piece of it. In order to get the wood loaded into the PG&E car (origin, not ownership) we formed a human chain with the chainsaw on one end and the car on the other. Steve looked quite a bit like he was tossing me a series of very wooden babies. I don't hesitate to tell you that these babies will keep my place warm all week.