Upon hearing that I had finished Liz Lemon’s hat, several people inquired about the status of Liz Lemon’s Scarf. Well, fair enough.

I decided that Jennifer was very perceptive. She pointed out that I had called it the “first repeat,” which presumes the existence of more repeats, correct? A fine and accurate point.

(I have heard that there are people who knit without the assistance of knitting blogs and knitting blog commenters. No idea how they do it.)

The end of the first repeat is the green zigzags at the far right. When I look at this picture, I see that I have been making some excellent progress. Which is a surprise, because it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Except for the way that it has been getting more and more difficult to cram into its project box.

Every morning I watch last night’s Daily Show and Colbert Report on Hulu, while I drink coffee and wait for the wood stove to warm the place up. I call this “my commute,” since I work from home.

I have been striving to knit at least one repeat during my commute. Just like I would if I were riding the bus. Which I’m sure sounds completely bizarre to non-knitters. But we knitters know that these funny little cognitive gymnastics are just par for the course with big projects.

Do you follow Sockington on Twitter? I adore Sockington. Ages ago he posted this update, which I saved to show you:

Brady and Kimble have endorsed this sentiment. I went into this winter with the determination to be the Badass Queen of the Cold House, and I have succeeded.

So far I have used less than half as much wood as I had last year by this point. (I have a shitload* of firewood, but it’s just like money. Just because you have a lot, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thrifty.)

For the last few months, they have been swinging between two modes:

1. Bristling, crouched, and glaring.

2. Sprawling, dozy, and stoned with heat.

Here’s Kimble in mode #2:

* The “ton” system is decimal. 10 craploads = 1 shitload. 10 shitloads= 1 fuckload.

Tags: Firewood, Liz Lemon's Scarf

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Okay so that title’s already wearing thin, but only because it’s so true. I can’t believe it’s Thursday already. It can’t be Thursday yet! I haven’t finished everything!

Here’s some log splitter video action, like I promised yesterday:

It’s an awfully neat machine, although (like several people commented yesterday) you’ll want to keep an eye on your fingers at all time. (And yes, I do wear work gloves while splitting firewood, I just couldn’t manage to run the camera with the gloves on. You’ll see at the end I have a bit of trouble trying to balance the log with my shin while holding the camera. I do not recommend splitting firewood with one hand while trying to film it with the other.)

It’s a lot better than splitting the 5-8 cords by hand. The one time I tried to split a log by hand with a maul and a wedge, I took about 20 swings at it, connected about 5 times, and managed to get it split into 2 pieces after about 30 minutes.

Hooray for technology!

Tags: Firewood

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October is a lovely month. Which is why it’s unfortunate that it’s the month when my life is consumed by firewood prep. Here’s one of four giant piles of rounds which my neighbor and I need to split up and stack.

Note the 55-gallon Rubbermaid garbage can on the left, for scale. (It has a teal/turquoise lid, if you’re having trouble spotting it.)

Not to be split by hand, thank goodness for small blessings. But with a giant gas-powered hydraulic log splitter loaned by a neighbor up the road. It’s actually a pretty entertaining machine, and I’ll try to get some video for you this week.

October is also the month when I do the least knitting, GUESS WHY. By the end of the day I can barely hold my head upright, much less try to knit things with my hands, which hurt.

Tags: Firewood

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Suddenly it seems like everyone’s taking vacation time and going to beautiful locales, where they dance the days away without a care in the world. Man, that is one thing I miss about having a Regular Office Job Like Normal People: Vacation leave. When you’re a freelancer, you’re either working or you’re not getting paid. I just can’t justify taking the time off, as much as I’d love to.

But I feel like I’m not legally allowed to complain about anything. Hell, yesterday I took a two hour break in the middle of the afternoon to wash the dishes and bake a pie using peaches from the tree next door.

But still.

Suddenly I’ve been feeling very SUMMER IS ENDING, accompanied by a certain tightness in the chest, a feeling of impending doom and panic about the tasks I still have left to complete. TIME IS RUNNING OUT. So I may indeed end up taking a week off this month – to deal with firewood.

That’s the remainder of last year’s firewood. It needs to be re-stacked, because it’s kind of scattered all over the place. Since it’s good and dry, it goes on the firewood shelf of the cabin, to be used first.

But hey, who put all that crap on the firewood shelf?! This is a combination of A) bits left over from building three chicken tractors in three months earlier this year, and B) stuff I moved off the front porch so that I could pressure wash it.

And that’s only a fraction of all the firewood-related tasks I have on my list. I’d show you more of them, but I might start weeping quietly, and then where would we be?

Tags: Firewood, Seasonal Chores, Vacation-Free Since 2002

Comments (9)