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120 pounds over a kilometer
Thursday, April 17 2014
It was a nice sunny day, though the air itself continued to be cool. In the early afternoon, after my daily Skype meeting with my guy in Pasadena, I took the dogs on a long walk mostly parallel-to-but-north-of the Stick Trail. I always seem to end up at the Funky Pond when I take this route, and I did again today. Ultimately I ended up on the Stick Trail near that dead tree I'd cut down about a month ago 41.92232N, 74.10289W. In the past I've calculated this place as being slightly more than a kilometer from home as the crow flies, though it's a bit further away over land. I'd already loaded some wood in my pack before I arrived at this location, and once there, I proceeded to cut up all that remained of that tree I'd cut down and load it into my pack as well. It was very heavy, but I somehow managed to rise to my feet with it. About two-thirds of the way home, I stopped to rest at a downed tree whose trunk was high enough to rest my pack on without having to lower it too far. Though I had to hunch a bit and couldn't rest my body against anything, it was enough of a break that I could have rested that way indefinitely, and it also provided enough freedom of movement to allow me to urinate. Once I got home, I weighed the pack and was astounded to see that the load had been about 120 pounds. My scale has a limit of 100 pounds, so I determined the 120 pound measure by noticing how far the indicator arm swung around on its second revolution through its circular scale. That is definitely a record.
That wasn't the only load of firewood I gathered today. Later this afternoon I went into the forest just west of the Farm Road and gathered some various scraps of wood from downed trees and brought it directly indoors to replenish the "real time" firewood supply. This latest return of the polar vortex means that I'm burning firewood again, and I want to be sure that every day I collect firewood for the future heating season. This means that any heating being done in the waning days of the current heating season must be done with firewood gathered additionally.
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