Today I had to chop kindling all by myself. I had been dreading it, and today I just went out there, grabbed some split logs of Doug fir, and whacked away at it. Ouch! Its getting colder, and my supply was down to a few sticks--not enough to start a fire in the woodstove. I had a large supply of kindling last fall, provided first by a neighbor, and then another big box chopped up by my contractor last spring. Because it has been raining so much, its hard to find dry branches on the ground, which is how I managed when I ran out last winter (Remember the drought?). There were lots of dry twigs and branches then. Kindling is like gold to me. I look at each stick and feel rich according to how many sticks I have. Were I about 10 years younger it would be nothing to prepare it myself. Ive been listening to some neuro-linguistic programming podcasts lately. It suggested I should shift my focus of dread to one of success, then take action. When I first started whacking those logs I was unfocused and nothing happened except the darn logs falling over on their sides. Then I just said focus focus focus and came down hard with the ax. I took deep cleansing breaths in between attacks (I was thinking of Thich Nhat Hanh now for the breaths, not the attacks). Pretty soon i had a little collection of kindling. When I light my fire (light my fire, light my fire) tonight Ill feel proud that I did it by myself.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 21:41:23 +0000
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