Some might choose to use such pejorative terms as "scavenging" or worse yet, "hoarding"; and while these words may well express this peculiar activity, I stubbornly maintain that what I am doing is not in fact crazy. Moreover it might be as natural and basic an activity as gathering provisions before an impending long and severe winter. It is springtime now. True. I'm not gathering this wood to burn for warmth. Also true.

So, while my friends and family debate on the exact level of insanity at work here let me just say that it is just one of the things I truly enjoy doing and, like most of my other wood-related endeavors, I too find myself asking why. Today, however, as my son excitedly helped me paint wax onto the end grain of some half-rotten maple logs, it was clear that we were doing a good thing.