old man winter

is on the way. But, why is it a man? After all, aren't women known for their frigidity? (psst I don't think that's a word.) Unfortunately, either way winter is coming and I am not ready yet. Rebekah and I spent a lot of time over the past month cutting up wood from various trees and branches as well as burning a massive brush pile. That was a little scary because there was so much brush that if it got away from us we could have very easily suffered a building meeting its untimely demise. We had the hose ready and tried to clear away burn lines so we could burn just a little bit at a time. Sounds good in theory, but the wind makes fools of us all... Well maybe just people trying to burn brush. Anyway, it was going nicely, but then the wind picked up and started to push our existing burn into another pile. That displeased me greatly so I desperately tried to wet it down but it was burning so fiercely that I decided that it was scary so I frantically sprayed it down until we finally got it way way down. And then the wind died. It was mocking me. Daring me. It knew that time was of the essence  and I needed to burn the brush as fast as possible. But did I dare? Yes I did. I fooled it by burning the pile on the other side of the direction rate wind was blowing. That way I didn't have to worry about the fire encroaching on my turf. Needless to say, after a long day I emerged victorious. But we still have to get wood to burn, oil to burn, pellets to burn (I like to have options) a chimney to clean and repair and some wood to split. So, you can see why I prefer 100 degree days over winter.

the kids and family are doing good. Some mild sickness right now, but not too bad. School has started so of course my wife is ready to throttle somebody, but that's to be expected. I think that I just measure time in when something got broken. I finally fixed our burned countertop. That was damaged five years ago by someone that I will not name to protect the guilty. I replaced a section of our stupid cheap counter with a butcher block. But I can't keep up. Within the past week the kids have damaged 4 separate items. But I guess that's part of being a parent. I will send them an itemized bill later.