Campfires in my family are a staple. If the weather is agreeable, I can promise there will be one. Early morning breakfasts or late evening talks are commonplace around a crackling fire. It’s where we tell stories, talk about the Bible and the latest current events. We have even been know to sing along to some of my dad’s hilarious guitar tunes as well.
If a man couldn’t chop, split, stack, or haul firewood, he was not allowed to join our family. I say in jest, but I was concerned about Chuck since we had met while in college. I was unsure if he had a country side or not? Until an F5 tornado ransacked our town, and the only way out was with a chainsaw and four-wheeler. I smiled, watching him cut trees right alongside my dad. I knew I had a keeper.
When I was a kid cutting firewood made me so mad. I dreaded the woodpile getting low. I knew what was coming next, a full day out in the middle of nowhere, cutting and hauling wood. Funny thing, it never seemed to phase my folks that I didn’t want to go cut firewood. I still was required to participate…without complaining.
Dad and mom would always turn it into a lot of fun somehow, dad with his endless jokes, and mom with her fun ideas like sledding with the snow shovel down the draws that were covered in a shimmering white powder.
One of the things that I love most about my folks is their interest in what others have to say. It is not their own voices they love to hear but others. They have always enjoyed our input and our presence. Even if I didn’t notice it as a child.
A long wood cutting day always entailed a break for lunch. Mom would pack sandwiches and a warm thermos full of hot chocolate for us to drink.
By the end of the work day, us girls would sit around and guess how many swings it would take dad to split the large logs with his maul. After he would finish, we headed home to unload and stack all the wood that was cut. Even with the pot of vegetable soup and cornbread that awaited us, my happy meter was on empty.
And yet today, there is not a winter pastime I enjoy more than cutting firewood. I love the smell the most. It drifts me back to South Dakota, or still other times; I am taken to my grandpa and grandma’s home. Even visiting them for the holidays always entailed a wood-cutting venture. I guess I was destined to love it.
It was almost two years ago; Chuck and I had driven up to spend some time with my folks. They needed help cutting down a tree that was an eyesore across the pond. Naturally, we volunteered. Eva was three. She came right along with us. If you don’t give kids the option, they won’t know the difference. She had her pile of little branches she pulled to the woodpile just like mommy. Even still, she did a lot of playing too.
Dad and Chuck were splitting logs when Chuck pulled a trunk out that was almost too big around to grab, and yet he tossed it upon his shoulders. Time went by, but Dad had taken notice. Unbeknownst to anyone, Dad throws a good size log upon his shoulders, then in his witty manner, he hollers out, “Mama, go ahead and throw that other log up on my other shoulder!” We all laughed at his humor. Now it has become a side joke anytime friendly competition arises.
The quality built over hard work is never sown in vain; even if it takes the fruit a little time to ripen.
Secretly, I desire my girls to love wood cutting as much as I do. I don’t want them to see a stack of firewood and never think about how it got there. I hope their senses fill and their minds flood with pictures of leather gloves, coveralls, and chainsaws; that the smell of gas and oil stops them in their tracks and drifts them back to images of their daddy cutting down a tree and their mommy glamorously stacking what is cut. And perhaps, like me, the sound of wood splitting will be to their liking and the word timber will be an echo they will cherish.
Welcome Home
“And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither and whatever he does shall prosper.” Psalms 1:3
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