Do you ever have one of those days where you cut wood with a chainsaw for a couple of hours, then load over 500 kg of wood into and out of your car?

Today I put in an honest day’s work, and all before breakfast.

Our current supply of wood for this year is quickly dwindling down but with some luck we should have enough to heat our house for the rest of the winter. But what about after that?

Our property is not too big so I can never keep more than one year’s supply of wood on our property. So that means I have to continually use and replace, use and replace. Unfortunately I cannot always find wood when I need it.

Today’s weather was off and on snow flurries but I’m guessing we won’t have any snow stay on the ground. We rarely seem to get snow that lasts nowadays. When I came to Japan years ago this wasn’t the case. In those days, every winter there would be a few days with a bit of snow on the ground - not enough for shovelling mind you, but enough to get your feet cold and wet.

Whether due to global warming or just some cycle the weather is in, things seem a bit warmer than they used to be. But flurries today means that today is cold, no denying that.

This was probably the most wood I’ve picked up at one time. I say this because driving home my car’s rear end scraped along the streets from time to time. If the streets were a little more level here and there, I wouldn’t have had that problem, but that is another issue.

I found a few nuggets of wood that are sufficiently dry enough to burn now, so I not only have more wood for next year but for about a week of this year as well. Speaking of which, now that I’m cleaned up and this is finished I should get on with starting a fire and warming the house. Warm wishes all.