Sunny and Cold

The weather has been remarkable lately. The forecast still calls for "partly cloudy" or "showers" and we have been getting full days of sun. It's been cold, though, but sunny and cold is beautiful in its own winter-wonderland way. It's great weather for doing yardwork. Wendy distributed a big pile of wood chips we created back in August when Aaron was here. I cut up a felled trunk (from before Aaron was here) and split and stacked some of the pieces.

Unfortunately, our dried wood pile hasn't gotten us as far this winter as I thought it would. We're down to sticks and scraps outside our front door and it's just after Thanksgiving. I think I have about a cord that will be ready next year.

My wood store is hard to measure since the wood is in two different places (under the hot tub and in Cinder's kennel) and because a cord of wood is difficult to measure. A cord of wood is a tight stack that measures four by four by eight feet. The problem is I am not a very good stacker of wood. Someone once told me the good way to tell if wood is stacked properly is to push down on the top of it and shake. If it comes apart, it wasn't stacked well.

I've started working on a project for my sister's birthday. I'm taking all the relevant video footage of her and her family that I have and am compiling it to one DVD. It makes me sad that I don't have more. Wendy and I have so many video cameras, and yet when I bring one out to film people, they always stress out. I'm the same, I guess. I went to have drinks with my friend David and, as soon as he got there, he pulled out a video camera. My immediate, natural reaction was to turn away.