Cutting Down a Tree

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this year. Either calm or chaotic, I am sure it was magical.

It's amazing how quickly Christmas zoomed up on us and then it was gone like a flash! We had a low key holiday with a simple menu of caramelized onion puff pastry appetizers, Cornish game hens with a lovely rosemary garlic sauce, mashed potatoes and a spicy but not too spicy Swiss chard. Pepperidge Farm cake was for dessert. We kept it simple and enjoyed each others' company.

Here are some photos of a project Tom and Z did around Thanksgiving. Macho man stuff, that's for sure.

There was a dead pine tree needing to come down, so Tom waited until Z could help. Z says he likes to do manual labor when he comes to the ranch, so we are taking him at his word.

Z is the hatchet man.

And Tom is the chainsaw guy.

Ms. Pearl just can't stand the snow.

Here's the tree almost ready for the words, "Timber!"

Luckily, the tree landed just exactly where they wanted, between two smaller trees, so nothing was damaged.

Ms. Pearl wants to tell everyone it was a job well done.

So what's my part in this? When it's time to cut up the tree, I promise to gather the logs and help T stack them. Yep.

Do You Have Your Wood In?

This is a common sight right here in Northern New Mexico. Nights are starting to freeze which means nippy mornings and wood fires.

It's All About Wood

It seems like every pickup truck bed is filled to groaning with wood nowadays, a reminder that winter is coming.

 
Here in Northern New Mexico most people heat with wood and a significant number use wood for cooking, too. It just makes sense: Heat the house and cook a meal at the same time.  It's not unusual to enter a kitchen and see two stoves, one for summer and another for winter. My kitchen is too small for an extra stove, but we have a wood burner in the living room, keeping us nice and toasty.

We're lucky because with trees right here, we just drive the Ranger around, cutting and collecting dead and down wood. I help somewhat, but Tom does most of the work. He says wood warms you up twice: once when it's collected and sawed, and again when the wood fire is burning merrily in the stove. (Tom doesn't say "merrily." That was me.)

Sometimes Tom does a little "Tom Sawyering" and gets innocent friends to collect wood for us.

 So we have piles of wood all over the place in different stages of preparation. That's okay because everyone else does, too, unless they buy wood already cut and split from that guy in the truck.

Yep, that's our bathtub from the old house. Next summer we will set it up in the yard for open air solar heated baths.

If you round the corner of the fence to the right, there's some more.

And if you walk along this fence, guess what?

Inside the fence next to the garage is the good stuff, all ready to burn.

 We keep wood close to the  house for easy access. I think we are set for wood now, Tom.

Uh, Tom?  Tom?

 Well, it's a sure thing we will be warm this winter.