O.k., October is here, September is over (finally!) and I can stop snivelling about it.  I can no longer be in denial about summer being over.  We just bought our firewood supply for the winter and that proves that summer is gone, done with.  Every year, in August, my husband says we have to start thinking about buying our wood supply so we discuss who to buy from and whether last year's supply was a good buy and decent wood to burn.  This year was a gift from God.  We go for walks up our hill about 3-4 times a week and near the end of August, we saw a trailer full of split firewood sitting there.  I got curious and one day I saw the owner of the house where the trailer was sitting and I asked if we could buy it.  He was thrilled because he didn't have to advertise and we were just a few doors down.  He delivered a few days later and, Praise God, we had the $$ to pay for it.  But that was just half the amount we needed.  We got the other half from him last Saturday and as I was stacking it with my husband and son, I got to thinking about this yearly event and all the stories that have come from it.  We've been doing this for 8 years now and every year, I always have a mini-pity party for a few minutes while we are stacking the wood in the dog run (no, we don't have a dog but it's a great place to stack firewood).  My pity party goes like this:  My sister in California never thinks twice about keeping her house warm.  If she ever needs heat, which is seldom in her climate, she just flips a switch and pays the bill the next month.  Sigh.  Here I am, getting splinters and breaking nails, sometimes crushing toes and fingers, just to keep our family warm from November to June.  Sigh.  Poor me.  Then I snap out of it and realize that I need to be thankful that we are able to buy the firewood we need and we do not have that extra fuel bill every month.  And I ask God to forgive me for being so ungrateful. 

I have to tell this story.  Back when Chad was just 3 and Alec was 6 months old, we got our first load of firewood after moving into our current house.  We had to pick up the wood from a sheep farm and stack it into our van, then take it home and stack it again in our dog run.  It was the hottest, most windy day of summer.  Sheep wool was flying everywhere and the sheep came right up to us, curious to know what we were doing.  I tried hard not to freak out since I have a bad history with sheep.  Years ago, I was chased by a mad ewe.  Why couldn't this have been a llama farm, I'm used to llamas.  Anyway, I had Alec in the van with the fan running and, of course, I ran the battery out.  My husband was not happy.  Since we had emptied the van prior, we had no jumper cables.  Fortunately, we had brought both of our vehicles and my husband (the mechanical whiz kid) jumped his van using some wire fencing that God had mercifully placed on the ground nearby.  It was so miserable, I was hot, tired, scared that Chad, my fearless boy, would get hurt or into trouble.  I had to stop and nurse Alec several times and try to keep him busy or sleeping.  It took all day and into the evening, since we had to stack the wood twice.  And then, just to make our day even more memorable, the following occurred: While I was pulling wood off the stack at the sheep farm, a 20' long python (o.k., maybe it was just a 2' long garter snake) leaped out right in front of me.  It wiggled through the air, hit the ground and slithered away, sheepishly (sorry, I had to say that).  I screamed and burst into tears.  (I'm the one in our family who ALWAYS finds the snakes, don't ask me why, maybe it's an Eve-thing)  I swore I'd never, ever go through that again and since then, we pay to have our wood delivered here at the house.  We still have to stack it but at least by the time it gets here, the snakes have been scared out by someone else.  I've now come to terms with this chore, necessary to keep my family warm and when our power goes out (which it does from time to time during high winds or storms) we have a way to cook dinner.  Last winter, we cooked a pizza on the stove top.  So, this is a blessing from God and it's great exercise.  My pity parties get shorter each year.  But I still get nervous around sheep.