It’s always a crap shoot when you try a new firewood supplier. The last guy was very prompt, even came early, and delivered a huge load of greener-than-expected pine which required a welding torch to ignite and then just sat there and pretended to give off heat. Not very satisfactory. I fed a whole cord into a woodstove and a kiva fireplace in less than a month and still stayed cold.
My neighbors, meanwhile, found a supplier in the paper and had a wonderful cord of perfectly dry piñon and “mixed” delivered. The man who drove the truck was a six and a half-foot tall Hispano/Indian with shoulder muscles the size of watermelons and a long braided ponytail that reached to his belt. I liked him immediately. The wood was relatively inexpensive, and piñon burns HOT! Naturally, I put an order in with these people …
One just has to be detached about such life & death matters, at least in good ole Taos, NM.
That was Friday, but on Saturday I still had no wood. The man who runs the splitter hadn’t come in to work, I was told, but maybe Sunday. Then there was an emergency on the ranch my wood suppliers (a local couple) managed up in Chama, in Rio Arriba County, a couple of hours away. The big guy had to go up there and snowmobile his way in to fix whatever it was, then his snowmobile broke. His wife, who was going to split and deliver my wood herself (I pictured a skinny, small woman in a Harley-Davidson jacket), had to drive up there to deliver supplies and maybe spare parts, then the two of them spent Sunday night in a cabin they have there.
I found all this out last night, when I finally reached her at home. The guy who does the chopping still hasn’t showed up and her husband, the big guy, still isn’t back from the ranch to load the truck. They have the “blocks,” they just need to chop ’em up. I could probably buy those and do my own chopping, but some of that piñon might require dynamite to split, and how could she ever load the truck with the heavier chunks, anyway?
No, I have to wait. Yesterday afternoon I fired up the chainsaw and cut up a pile of old boards that worked rather well in the Ashley last night, considering it got down to five degrees. It’s still only 12 outside, in bright sunshine. There are still more boards to cut, and I’m gonna cut ’em. The word I have is, “later in the week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday.” After mulling that over, I told her to send TWO cords.
I don’t want to have to burn my furniture.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.