SPLINTERED OAK

I spent late yesterday afternoon splitting the summer hurricane-fall oak E and I scavenged over the weekend, leftovers from our last excursion into the woods on the far side, the violent ends of the oak trunks apparent in the way they had been literally twisted into splinters and torn down by the force of the locomotive air.

Generally I love splitting oak, but this wood posed an interesting problem. You can't stand the bucked sections on the splintered end of course, so you have to stand them on the cut end and strike the splintered end with the axe. The splintered end then just absorbs the axe like a government absorbs money. It took much more work to finally turn the oak into firewood, but as always it was worth the effort to see that scented pile of gold just stacking up, to gain interest with each passing day.

At the end I sat on the chopping stump beside the golden stack for my usual post-task gaze at the Lake, and there was the full golden moon, just a light-whisper out of the haze as it rose into the silence of the stars. There’s a whole lotta magic about being in a naturally tired body, watching the moonrise...