Shifting Course

My mind keeps wanting to say that the dreaded day has come, though I don't really see it that way. A couple of weeks ago I finally started taking time out from making my nine-part "iris window," to start getting in this winter's firewood. But I did it in a relaxed way that was dictated by various physical infirmities that I didn't have even last year, mainly pain to various degrees in both my knees and below there. Plus the first large tree that I cut, an oak, hung up in another large oak, and I lost a lot of time and used up a lot of valuable energy cutting it free, not to mention the wear and tear on my anxiety level, because that is a situation where you have to be wide awake and thinking at every moment that you're in its vicinity.

Though all my neighbors probably didn't experience it, yesterday morning the temp here on our little frost pocket property hit freezing for the first time this year, and last night I finally had to fire up our heating stove -- though the date for that momentous event, Oct 19, wasn't bad. Oct 15 is usually the day for that. And this means that I have to shift into a higher and steadier gear with the wood-cutting, which I hope won't take more than the next two months.

I think my knees will, regardless, carry me through, and meanwhile there's no more beautiful a place in which to work than the woods here, in this fall season. It's like constantly moving inside a huge kaleidoscope filled with dazzling colors.

I hope that I can keep my workshop warm all through the winter as well, because I badly need to keep on working on the window, as I am only about a quarter of the way through the second pane. When the temps sink into the 20's, always in the past I've given up and restricted myself to the house. This year, as with all other situations, we'll have to see.