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burns like a motherfucker Tuesday, February 13 2007
We'd missed out on the eleven feet of lake effect snow that had blanketed cities further west in New York and hadn't yet experienced an appreciable accumulation of snow this entire season. But now a huge winter storm was headed our way, a rendezvous of warm moisture coming from the Gulf of Mexico with a arctic air mass from the Midwest. So today (despite temperatures in the teens and occasional gusts of joy-denying wind) I went on something of a firewood gathering & cutting jihad. It started in the nearby forest and ended at the cutting station I've set up for myself near the unused dog house in the yard. All of what I collected came in the form of standing dead trees that I had to cut down with my bow saw (a great source of just-in-time firewood). Most of it was that bone-dry dead white pine that I love so much. If it didn't burn up so quickly it would be the ideal firewood: abundant, nearby, easy to fell, easy to carry, easy to cut, and burns like a motherfucker. The house had been cold since the fire died out last night so I interrupted my jihad long enough to drop a couple pieces of this dead white pine in the fire box as Gretchen huddled nearby with a book and one or two cats. The effect was immediate and dramatic and by this evening the living room was humming at 78 degrees. Meanwhile outdoor temperatures had returned to the lower teens.
Snow started falling sometime before midnight.
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