Another Project in the Works!

When I was a child, our woodshed was just outside our kitchen door — the perfect place for my grandmother’s use in the wood cookstove and fairly convenient for the boys and men of the household to keep the wood baskets near the three fireplaces filled.

In due time, the woodshed was upgraded to a laundry room and for years, our firewood supply has been stacked on pallets in an out-of-the-way corner of the garden.  Much of that wood has been salvaged from trees that neighbors had taken down and offered to anyone who would clean up the mess.  Free firewood?  Nyel was always willing.

Although the wood is in a fairly “protected” spot, it is not in a woodshed nor is it convenient to the house.  Nonetheless, as long as Nyel was able, he saw to it that the wood baskets were kept well-supplied.  In the last few years it’s been up to me and I have to say that I’ve not been very faithful at my task.   So, over time, some of the wood has gotten punky, the pallets on which it is stacked have begun to disintegrate, and the entire situation has become “a project.”

Staging Area

Nyel has prevailed upon our landscaper/patio-creator Eugene, to build us a woodshed (YAY!) but agreed to first clear the wood out of that garden corner.  After much deliberation, and even though it’s a bit of a trek to and from the house, that area still seems the best place to situate the firewood and will be the location of the new woodshed.  We console ourselves (or I do) that if the wood is dry, it will be much easier to deal with — even on rainy days.

So… Nyel has been busy sorting wood — the punky stuff in one pile and the good stuff in another.  More than once I’ve held my breath as he has maneuvered his wheelchair into impossible positions but… so far, so good.  Tom-the-mower-man has agreed to haul off the bad stuff and I have been prevailed upon to stack up the good stuff in a somewhat protected area.

In The Interim

So it is that Nyel, is moving fireplace wood to a staging area on the east porch steps.  He stacks it up on his feet and against his legs as he sits in his wheelchair — he looks like Forklift Man!  He gets it to the east porch steps where he stacks it neatly.  Then I carry it, two pieces at a time (usually), and stack it on the porch.  For me, lots of bending and lifting — kind of like Winnie-the-Pooh’s stoutness exercises, or so I tell myself.

We hope to be finished today and hope, even more, that Eugene will be as good as his word and start the woodshed — “around the end of the month.”  Oh boy!  A woodshed!  Who knew?

One Response to “Another Project in the Works!”

  1. Jan Paxton says:

    I think it’s wonderful that Nyle is doing this! Never underestimate the person who just happens to have a disability! You go Nyle!!!

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