We have burned about 4 cords this year but are down to about three wheelbarrows of split wood. I've been lighting fewer fires lately. The snow is still a little deep to be cutting trees and hauling logs out. I've got a few cords of apple wood but need to haul it from Palisade. I'll be busy cutting this year.

Many years ago when I lived in Boulder, my next door neighbor was Forest Crossen, a well known historian who authored many books on the mining, railroads, people and places of Boulder County. Forest was in his late seventies, early eighties when I knew him. He burned firewood to heat his house and in his back yard was a large wood-fired steam engine connected by a massive canvas belt that powered a 3 foot buzz saw blade. Every once in a while he would fire it up, whump, whump, whump! I'd help him feed and stack the wood.

Forest had a good garden and didn't appreciate feral cats digging and crapping in it. I'd frequently hear him shooting his .22 rifle, right there on Spruce Street in downtown Boulder. Sometimes I'd visit to check out what he was shooting at. One time we met in the alley, each of us carrying .22 rifles and hunting a certain very bad neighborhood cat. I finally offed it one morning with my Anschutz target rifle and took it to show Forest. The damn thing was long-haired, scraggly, stinking filthy, and it must have weighed 30 lbs. He told me that he'd shot squirrels, skunks, raccoons, a fox and a couple of deer in his back yard garden. I was impressed that he ate the raccoons as well as the deer. One block off of Pearl Street in downtown Boulder.