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cottonwoo Monday, March 5 2007
setting: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
Another beastly cold front was on the way (the real last one of the winter?) so I was out in the snow again with my bow saw cutting down smallish dead pines and oaks so I'd have a good supply of completely dry wood. I also split up the last of the cottonwood and it was so green that liquid water drooled lustfully from the wood as drove in my wedge. In the past I would have found this discouraging, but now I have the experience to know that green cottonwood is only a few days away from being dry enough to burn if handled properly. These days I routinely set pieces of drying firewood on top of the woodstove (standing on their cross-sections). I've found that if I place the wood on the green enamel-covered surface of the stove it dries and does not burn (unless the stove is running unusually hot).
Something about all that work, the cozy warmth of the fire, and the ordeal of yesterday's road trip made me sleepy, so I stretched out on the living room couch and took a prolonged nap. At some point Clarence the cat came along and planted himself across the backs of my knees.
It might be amusing for the reader to learn that I routinely pronounce "cottonwood" as "cottonwoo." This dates back to 1986, when I had an account on a VAX 750 running some flavor of Unix at Oberlin College. I was familiar with the other users on that system, one of whose last name was "Underwood." But because the maximum character length for a username was only eight characters, when one issued a "w" command, that user was shown as "underwoo."
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