Obstacles Will Forever Be Obstacles until Dealt With
Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by Laura-Jane - Whimfield in House, Outdoors, Prince Edward Island
We heat our house solely with wood. We keep a week’s worth of firewood on hand in a bin near the door.
Weekly, as the firewood bin starts to look empty, there are a few stragglers at the bottom of the bin. There’s a rotten piece, a skinny piece that’s way too long to fit inside the wood-stove, and there is one big chunky piece, which we’ve already tried to jam into the wood-stove a couple of times to no avail.
You see, this chunky piece of firewood has a nub protruding out of its top. Because of this protruding nub, no matter which way we spun this odd-shaped piece of firewood it just wouldn’t go in. Unlike the last time, it was simply impossible to get this piece inside the wood-stove.
After attempting to jostle it into the wood-stove, we’d sigh, haul the irregular piece back to the bin, and throw it back inside the wood-bin–to be dealt with at another time.
Every week, as the firewood supply in the bin grew low, old nubby would still be there, jammed in the bottom of the wood-bin–last to be picked, never wanted, not quite right.
Well, I guess Cameron got sick of looking at old nubby in the bottom of the bin, because today old nubby got surgery on the hearth. Old nubby’s protruding nub was removed, and old nubby finally went up in smoke to keep us warm.
Thanks, old nubby. I won’t say that I’ll miss you, because I’m glad you’re no longer sitting forlornly at the bottom of our wood-bin. But at least you will forever be commemorated in this eulogy.
Kim
Mar 1st, 2010
Glad to know we’re not the only ones who do that!
George
Mar 1st, 2010
I’m just glad to see you write,remember showing up is important.
Mom Marjorie
Mar 1st, 2010
I admire your ability and tenacity to heat with wood; I was always fearful of creosote build-up which everyone warned me about, never being adept at getting fires hot enough!
A memory of house-heating in my childhood is when we “functionally” heated the house with a coal furnace in the basement, and used our cozy fireplace in the livingroom for special occasions. Traditionally, on Sundays, your grandma Connie and grandpa George would spread the picnic blanket on the living room rug and we three would sit on it, happily scarfing down toasted salmon sandwiches, and toasted cheese sandwiches while revelling in the fireplace. For desert we would toast marshmallows. (I still have a burn scar from a flaming marshmallow that fell off the stick onto my knee when I was watching our new-fangled TV.
By the way, I still sometimes use this vintage silver grill for toasting such sandwiches.
Hey, I clicked on your link, (where the words “the last time” are underlined) – and today’s blog seems like a great sequel to that 2009 log-struggle. Worth rereading!
John Quimby
Mar 3rd, 2010
Been pondering this post for a few days.
Came back to read it again and laughed when I saw your title and the picture.
Laughed because I noticed how often we create the obstacle we have to overcome.
warren
Mar 3rd, 2010
It sometimes seems lie our whole house is full of these…tings that lay around because we just don’t want to deal with them…every now and then, just like Cameron, we “take a notion” and fix it up…and it’s rarely as bad as it seems like it was going to be