Who'd a thought?

        It's been many years since I've split firewood. The township board ordered me to remove all trees from my right-of-way. Chris, Rollie and David helped me with that. Cedar, ash and buckthorn so old they were towering trees, were the culprits. While it was much work it consisted of cutting them down with a chainsaw and hauling them away with a tractor. We moved to our house in Golden Valley in 1988 and soon after I purchased some fireplace wood that required splitting. Soon I moved on to buying wood already split.
      What would possess me to read an entire book about firewood?  Who would think I would even enjoy reading it?  Well, I did read it and I did enjoy it. So, go figure. No, I have no intention of splitting any firewood...no fireplace, neither in the condo, nor The Little House On The Prairie.
       Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood the Scandinavian Way, by Norwegian author Lars Mytting was surprisingly interesting.  It even feature a forward by Roy Jacobsen, whose The Unseen I thought was exceptionally good. Norwegian Wood has beautiful pictures of artistic stacked wood. Included are the kinds of wood, tools for making firewood, instructions on how to stack, information about stoves and much more. There were more details about energy values of types of wood than I needed but to true lovers of wood this is a treasure.  N.M....are you reading this?  T.M. has already been alerted. M.A., you, too.
       Yes, I recommend the book...to selected audiences. 😊

Here's a happy story from The Washington Post.

A girl and her mail carrier
Emerson, 11, loves to write letters. She decorates them elaborately and has been sending them out to friends and family for years. 
Recently, she decided to give a letter to her own mail carrier. 
“I’m Emerson,” she wrote. "You may know me as the person that lives here that writes a lot of letters & stamps; decorated the envelopes. Well, I wanted to thank you for taking my letters and delivering them. You are very important to me. I make people happy with my letters, but you do too.”
Emerson's note sparked a wave of gratitude within the U.S. Postal Service. She's now exchanging letters with about a dozen new mail carrier pen pals. “These letters are so deeply human,” her dad wrote. “They are filled with family, pets, hobbies, community and an overwhelming sense of kindness.”


Takk for alt,

Al