It’s sort of ironic that labour day is a holiday because around these here parts it meant, well, labour.  Yep there’s always lots to do on the farm and with school starting tomorrow there was a flurry of activity.

While I could wax lyrical about my homeschool filing system with extra nourishing coloured dividers, I will instead focus on the real hard graft that went on here today.  It was a wood fest people, the likes of which our corner of the world has never seen before.  Stephen and our wonderful neighbour got their chainsaw on in epic style.  Wood was chopped, logs were rolled, sweat was…sweated.  It was manly.

In just 4 hours two determined chaps and their chainsaws turned a big pile of tree trunks into logs, logs that can now be split, stacked and dried ready for the winter to come.  Ready to be burned in our furnace and wood stove, keeping us warm through the cold nights to come.

Despite the sticky hot weather we’ve had this week the calendar tells us that time is ticking on.  The nights are drawing in, reminding us that the seasons will change and that the cold will come once again.  This winter, thanks to the hard work of these two chaps (and a couple more days including yours truly), there will be no wood chopping and splitting, just wood burning in the cosy safety of our home.

Today was a busy day, a busy day in a busy week during a busy season.  That is the life we’ve chosen for ourselves, one that doesn’t include a lot of leisure time, not by today’s standards anyway.  But the work is part of what makes this life so wonderful and meaningful for us.  It is work that doesn’t just disappear into the ether, benefiting someone else somewhere else, it is benefitting us, here.  It is quantifiable and makes our lives better, it’s hard to argue with those kinds of results.

As we move into the fall season we are seeing many things come to a close.  Projects are being finished, animals are living out their final weeks, plans for winter are in the forefront of our minds.  We are so conscious of each season here, of what it brings and what it takes for us to be ready.  Each year we are a little more prepared, a little more ahead.  Last year we chopped wood right into the spring, it was a tiring and cold chore but one that had to be done.  This year we can look forward to a prepared woodpile that we simply have to walk out to and haul into the house, that feels like quite a luxury.  A luxury paid for by the work of two chaps on this labour day.