Winters a comin'

The very long list is sitting undone bound between the blacl covers of a notebook, firmly closed, where it can't accuse me from.

That's not strictly true. But I liked how the line sounded.

We're working oujr way through the list, which spans the orninarily mudnae (checking the heating oil level) to the herculeanly mundane (storing the several hundred litres of water we plan to overwinter with).

There have been beautiful moonrises over the shoulder of the forested hill of late, the clear disc of ambering moon lighting up nighttime. The space station tracking rapidly acroiss the sky. Jupoiter shining at the foot of the burning moon.

Shots are ringing out across the valley. The dul rapid thuds of the pheasant hunters, plodding and rapdly plugging at the birds they seeded the area with. We met the neighbours, and dog, and children, waxcoated with broken guns, a liurching danelike creature skittering across the fields looking to flush out a fat little bird and watch it waddle across the sky. They had had no luck, and they moved on up the field and across the gorse and heather in a line.

Ther wood has arrived. We got stuck in the van reversing down out neighbours path, and he roared up happily in his tractor and hooked upma chain to drag the van up his hilltrack. With the few loads we have collected, we look set for next year.

This years wood is mainly split. Spruce is an awkward splitter, and one to be careful with. I founbd the six pound maul made shorter work than last years hickory handle axe, but even still, some had to be stubbornly cleft with a set of wedge and a hammer. What remains will have to be dug out and vut and split as the winter unfolds. Still, we should be set until the coming of February with what we have. Longer of we mix it with turf.