Penelope giggles in the next room as her mom dresses her for the day. The wood stoves crackles with poplar and birch warming the chilled air. The low temperatures in recent nights have hovered right around 20 degrees. With a fresh brew of coffee in the mug I'm lying on the couch wrapped in a wool blanket reading a Canadian wilderness adventure and enjoying the first real rest I've taken in a long while. Just beyond the horizon is winter. In the North, this is a time to recoup, rest up, and plan the upcoming work season.
Winter, however, is not quite upon us. Before I can rest too much I have firewood to process. We've added a new tool to our arsenal. This week our "new to us" wood splitter arrived. I fired her up right away eager to start working at our pile of bucked birch. Being a used machine, I knew that I wanted to start our with fresh hydraulic fluid. This, however, is my introduction to hydraulics. I followed all the sage wisdom that I've absorbed talking with folks trying to limit the amount of air that I let into the line. Slowly the gurgles decreased as I filled the cylinder with fluid. Then, seemingly as random as a geyser, fluid shot straight up five feet into the air. I was left with a pink goo mess that I buried in saw chips to absorb the petro-based mess. The geyser lasted for barely five seconds but left me with a sheepish smile on my face. Our splitter had a new name: "Old Faithful"!
She started right up and has effortlessly split every piece I've placed in her jowls. So as gentle snow flakes fall and bald eagles soar the shoreline of Lake Superior below me "Old Faithful" purrs as we eat through chord after chord of firewood...
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