The last row of firewood in our woodshed taunted me this spring. Each day the weather became warmer and each day the remaining row of wood gave notice it would not sink much further, at least for burning this season. The wood had already seasoned for almost a year. No sense in burying it behind a new delivery of rows of fresh split firewood.
I mentally counted how many times I had already moved that row of firewood. A number that reaches absurdity I assure you. And yet I now needed to move the row out of the woodshed and stack it between the barn and the woodshed.
Estimated time for the project - half an hour. Ah the optimist in me never fails at the start.
Here are a few of the ensuing actions that followed as part of this little half-hour project.
First I moved out a standing pallet out of the way placing it in front of the barn door (Mistake no. 1). Next, I moved three 2x4's out of the way, then decided to use the 2x4's to create a uniform platform. Only the width was short. So I retrieved wider boards from a decommissioned raised garden bed. Nine screws need to be removed from each. Went inside to get a Phillips screwdriver. Pulled a few screws but most would not budge. Tried to pound them out with a large rock and managed to bend a few making it nearly impossible to remove them with any tool. Went inside to retrieve a drill with a Phillips bit. Removed a few screws but most still refused to budge. Decided to cut off the end of the boards where the remaining screws were lodged. (Mistake #2)
Moved the pallet away from the barn entranceway. (Do you see how I manage to gain frequent flyer miles on everything I touch?)
A large wooden box in front of the table saw needed to be moved. Picked it up laboriously as I have a pulled muscle or two in my shoulder (best case). Dropped the heavy wooden box on the side of the table saw. Attempted to pick up the table saw only to find the box had attached itself to the legs of the table saw. No matter of pulling, lifting, twisting, or cussing would disconnect these two love birds. About seven minutes later the copulation ended and I was able to separate the two.
Only now I realized about 35 five-gallon buckets, some cardboard boxes, a milk crate, a recycling blue bin, and a heavy round glass outdoor table blocked my route.
I moved the glass table to the backyard, stacked all the five-gallon buckets, moved them to another room in the barn (no doubt not their last trip), moved the other items out of the way. Taking a moment to re-calculate - hey it works for those GPS units when they get confused, lost, or disoriented. Decided part of the space I cleared up would be a good place to place the fifty or more very large plastic bags I had all over the place - so I stacked them up in the newly freed up space.
Looked over my pathway to freeing up the table-saw. Decided the wheelbarrow might be in my way. Had to empty the wheelbarrow. As I started to roll the wheelbarrow to a new spot I noticed the handle to the garden cart was on the floor. As I reached to lift it up, noticed the wheels of the garden cart had come off the chassis. Fixed the wheels, lifted the handle, and rolled the wheelbarrow in place.
After addressing a few other items that caught my attention, or more accurately distracted me, I moved the table saw in reach of the electrical outlet. Ok back in business. With luck, the project could still be completed in only twice the original estimate. "Optimism is the madness of insisting all is well when we are miserable. " ~Voltaire
Boards cut. Laid them out between woodshed and barn. Of course, not on the level. Retrieved stones to obtain a roughly even platform. I so admire bricklayers. Imagine if a bricklayer is off even 1/1000 of an inch for every row of bricks in a wall. By the time the top row is reached the wall would lean like the Tower of Pisa. My puzzling effort with rocks took a while to get anything remotely like an even platform. By now my sore shoulder is no longer talking to me. It is now SCREAMING at me.
After re-stacking a few dozen chunks of wood, I look down and realize I forgot to change into a work shirt. By now the time passed since the start of this half-hour project is approaching two hours. My optimism and energy level are both rapidly declining.
Much, much, much later, the last piece of firewood re-stacked for next year's use. I go inside and Maeve reads me the weather forecast which now warns of an impending snowstorm and change in the forecast for the rest of the month - cold is back. She wisely informs me "we might need that last row of wood this year. Guess you won't have to move it out of the woodshed to the side of the barn after all." Recalculating my firewood frequent flyer miles, I figure by the time I burn that last row of firewood it will have given me two million BTUs (BTUs = Best Time Usurped - Sucks).
Now it is starting to snow. The beep, beep sound is the truck full of 3 cords of firewood backing into the driveway as I scramble to get the pallet, 2x4's, drill, screwdriver, and table saw out of the way so that I can utilize my free time to accumulate more frequent flyer firewood miles stacking the new firewood into the woodshed.
Recalculating. Let's see, that should take, what, about 4 or 5 hours? Yup, always the optimist. Now where did I put my work gloves? OH S___
left them in the driveway where the three cords of wood are now piled up. Murphy's law or is it my law - Anything of value must be moved a zillion times before you can make use of it.
Maybe this might take a bit longer than anticipated.
Recalculating.....
P.S. this twenty-minute post took a bit longer after Maeve read and pointed out all the punctuation errors!
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