I've been out walking in the woods again.
This time however I left the paint box home and brought the chain saw. That's right, it's wood cutting season and I'm straining muscles that I forgot that I had. It all started about 15 years ago when Kim and I bought a house and installed a wood stove. Since then firewood accounts for about 80% of our winter heating. We both enjoy having a roaring fire on those long cold winter nights. But there is the added benefit of getting a great workout from falling trees, cutting and loading logs, cutting into smaller logs, splitting and eventually stacking the wood.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains are wonderful as a subject matter for landscape painters, but these woods are more than that to me. I grew up here, hiked and sleep out under the stars, saved a guy from hypothermia during a winter camping trip, got chased by a Black Bear looking for an easy lunch.
And yet these mountains still hold lots of mystery and adventure, more country than I will ever see.
This time however I left the paint box home and brought the chain saw. That's right, it's wood cutting season and I'm straining muscles that I forgot that I had. It all started about 15 years ago when Kim and I bought a house and installed a wood stove. Since then firewood accounts for about 80% of our winter heating. We both enjoy having a roaring fire on those long cold winter nights. But there is the added benefit of getting a great workout from falling trees, cutting and loading logs, cutting into smaller logs, splitting and eventually stacking the wood.
And yet these mountains still hold lots of mystery and adventure, more country than I will ever see.
