The End is Near

Last Monday was a Federal holiday and I had the day off work.  The weather was favorable for working on the log pile.  Last spring, 20 ton of firewood in the form of felled trees was delivered by a logging company.  When we order a load, the trees are transported on a semi and off-loaded with a picker and piled in the upper portion at the side of our driveway.
The trees need to be sawed into lengths that fit the firebox on our wood stove and then subsequently split. Our home has an oil fired hot air furnace; however, ever since OnlyDaughter was three years old, we have tried to cut and split firewood to heat the house.  Years ago it was not as hard on the back as it now is but Mr P persists in ordering when the stacked rows start to diminish.
The pile never seems to get smaller to me even though we work on it whenever time and the weather permit.
When the tarp was rolled back on the pile last week, I was overjoyed to see daylight shining through the pile from one side to the other.



We split and stacked in the wagon for a good hour.

When the wagon was full, there was a small pile of logs left (not enough to fill another wagon load) along with some smaller chunks that aren't firebox length.  The wagon load was taken down to the house and Mr P stacked it behind the shed while I made a trip to the grocery store.  When I returned home, I discovered that not only was all the wood in the trailer stacked but the remaining wood along the driveway was loaded into the trailer and brought down to the house to be split at a later date.  The only thing left along the driveway are a few more of the chunks which can be loaded into the wheelbarrow to be brought down to the house.
What a great feeling to get the wood done and the pile cleared out.  There are still the trees that were cut down at The Puddle Pond when the power company came through to saw and split.  

In the afternoon, I decided to do some baking.  The title of this cookbook says it all.  

I didn't use a recipe from this book to make chocolate whoopie pies but a recipe I've used for years from a cookbook published by a women's club back in the 70's.  You can see the chocolate batter in the bowl and scooped on the cookie sheet.  I got the chance to use the cookie scoops that were a Christmas gift from Mr. P.  The cookies were nice and uniform which is great since the white filling gets sandwiched between two cookies.  

Whoopie pies sold in stores in the area are ususally wrapped in cling wrap and the cookie sticks to the wrap.  You can spend a lot of time just trying to get every bit off that wrap.  I wrap mine in waxed paper but if you don't eat them within a few days, they tend to dry out.  To avoid just this problem, a delivery was made to the neighbors in the evening and the next day a bagful was taken to work for my coworkers.

Snow fell overnight on Wednesday into Thursday.  The drive into work was slippery but I made it without a mishap.  Here is a picture of The Puddle Pond taken in the afternoon.  Temperatures have been very cold and underneath that layer of snow there is ice.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr P was headed out to get wood off the porch to add to the fire.  When he went to open the front door, there were about 10-12 deer on the right side of the drive.  They were meandering slowly across the driveway headed into the woods on the left.  

We watched them for 10-15 minutes.  There was one young deer who was feeling it's oats.  It kept running in the front yard, kicking up its heels and bumping into the others as it frolicked around.  As the herd moved off into the woods, the energetic one kept running and hopping around having a good time.  

Once in the woods they moved down along the left hand side of our propery, crossed the stream and eventually made their way to the snow covered corn field behind our property.  They were beautiful to watch but they will be the same ones who will decimate my garden this summer.  Oh well.

Hope you are staying warm wherever you are.  There is to be a sloppy mix again tomorrow morning in time for the commute to work again.
Have a good weekend wherever you are.