Total Insecurity

I was in my usual position the other afternoon, sitting on the terrace with a glass of Rosé, when the mist came rolling down the mountainside behind the house. Despite the fact that it was probably about 80+ degrees, it reminded me of winter when the weather on the Courmettes (or Cupples Mountain as I call it), can make this place seem like hell or heaven, all in the space of one afternoon.

It was the thought of winter which caused my attention to wander to my log pile and then the usual insecurities started. Have I got enough logs for the winter? Will it get cold earlier and I’ll have to start lighting fires before the middle of October? Will it be a really cold winter (it wasn’t last year) and I’ll use twice as many logs?

I don’t know why this is such a problem, after all, if I did run out of logs I could go into the woods and cut some more and indeed, I’ve already got some trees down in the ‘jungle’ already felled. I suppose it’s just that by the start of October (a few months away I agree) I always aim to have a full winter’s stock of logs, up here, just outside the house and ready to burn. I like to be organised enough so that I don’t need to run about like a madman with my chainsaw if I’m down to my last few twigs.

This is probably a ‘man thing’. I’m the provider – well for logs I am and it would be a major blow to my man pride if we ran out of logs. Of course I could always drag the trailer down to the wood yard and buy a couple of pallets worth but in the 10 years we’ve been burning logs during the winter, I haven’t bought a single bit of wood.

So, every now and then I wander over to my log pile and have a good long look at it trying to work out if there’s enough. This year it’s all oak so it should burn more slowly than last year’s pine.

Crazy eh ? It is hitting 100 degrees here and I’m thinking about winter fires already! And what about the photo – interesting or what?