Tis The Season ...

... well, not quite THAT season ... and not quite Heating season ... but it IS the season to gather firewood for winter.
DadToCherubs has been a busy guy. He has been going around the farm every few days to gather already-downed hardwood tree logs (with permission, of course). The farm is happy to have these downed trees cleared, and we are happy to have lots of free firewood.

He loads the logs (with Cherub Power -- 6 children who know how to work hard !!) on our little trailer, and then when he comes home, he puts them in a pile in the yard.
A dear friend loaned his log splitter to us for a little while, and so on the days inbetween "gathering", Cherub Power plus DadToCherubs cut to length, split, and stack the wood.
The pile is growing bit by bit -- and we hear there are lots of trees down along the fields here. So when the farm's field corn is chopped, DadToCherubs will head out along the field edges to gather ... and gather .... and gather. More Cherub Power will definately be needed on those adventures.

About Cherub Power -- having 6 children who are willing to work hard (and who love to be "paid" in icecream !) ...well, they are quite an Army when everyone is moving in the same direction, with a project and a goal. Now I understand even better why families of yesterday were often big families -- many hands DO manke light work.

We installed a woodstove insert last year to help heat this big old house. But we installed it in November, so it was too late to do much about finding and preparing firewood. So we bought wood periodically last year, which worked out fine except for our wallets. This year we hope to gather all of our own wood, and get it cut, split, and stacked ... all before the cold weather starts.

The Farm Manager drove by the other day, and stopped to joke with DadToCherubs (who is a professional computer nerd, and not an outdoors-man by habit) that he was going to get calluses on his baby-soft hands from REAL work (of course, he was kidding !). And the Dairyman stopped when DadToCherubs was chain sawing -- to joke "do you really know how to use that thing ?? It doesn't have a keyboard or a mouse, you know !"

Way to go, DadToCherubs !! We are looking forward to lots of warm toasty days this winter ... well, many not the winter part ... but the warm toasty part sounds good.