Letters from the Woodpile

Ok
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Another Sunday. The Browns lost 31-0, but that wasn't as bad as I predicted. What a waste of time. At least with this season being so bad for the Browns I was able to quit watching by halftime on most Sundays and go stack wood for the coming Winter.
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I have learned over the past couple winters to stack my wood strategically...that is...I match the size of my logs with the time of season I will be into that area of my pile. I keep the smaller wood in the Fall/Spring areas of my pile and put the large logs in the Winter section. It seems to work for me. During warmer weather...40 degrees and up...my fire is at risk of going out because of the long duration between burns. Hence I need smaller logs since they keep their embers longer. In the heart of Winter, none of this matters since my Hardy H2 is working more, burning more, and smoking more.
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Today, I noticed the smoke was blowing out to the vast woods behind my house so I decided to burn the bags of wrapping paper and card board boxes left over from Santa's visit. A responsible OWB owner should never burn anything but seasoned wood in their furnace to keep smoke to a minimum...but on days when the wind is blowing into the vast Ohio outback, I figure nobody would care...so in go the paper products. I would rather claim my BTU's for my house then to throw good stuff in the trash.
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If a book tells a story...so does a woodpile. Today I grabbed a couple of logs to go into my OWB and I immediately recognized the log about to be sacrificed to the Hardy God. Its interesting how I have a woodpile with around 20 cords of wood and still I can remember specific logs from my summer of labor. Every log has a story to tell!! Anyhow, this log was very recognizable to me as it was from a truck load of soft wood I picked up for free back in July. I was driving on a short cut thru an affluent neighborhood and saw an S-10 sitting at the end of a driveway with the bed heaping with logs and a sign on top reading "Free Wood." Cool!!! It's Mine!!! I thought...but wait...I don't have my truck. I quickly made a direct B-line to my parents house and commandeered Dad's truck and drove back to the free wood. I get excited when I come across a find like this and I can still remember the nervous excitement speeding to that house. There I was, in Khaki's and a nice button down, in the Ohio-in-July heat transferring a load of wood from one truck into my Dad's.
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While most of the wood turned out to be landscaping type trees, it was still good size for my Hardy, it didn't need split and certainly would burn on a nice Fall or Spring Day. I knew exactly where I would stack it. So today when Northeast Ohio was experiencing a reprieve from Winter and basking in the 60 degree weather, I ran across this one log and I flashed back to a lazy summer day when I got a free load of wood without having to fuel up a saw. Ahh...Life's simple pleasures.
Smokin