Any help hauling firewood suddenly disappears when there's a bird involved

November 17, 2020 - Tuesday morning

21 degrees/cloudy/windy

Pentoga Road

I was up shortly before 5 this morning with the intentions of visiting the bathroom and checking on Hambone before returning to bed. The bathroom thing went as planned, but while tip toeing into the guest bedroom, I stubbed my toe on a chair and fell forward, squarely on top of Bone.

Only my cat-like reflexes kept him from being squashed like last summer's bug on the windshield of life. 

One thing's for certain. The boy could fall asleep in Kansas and wake up the next morning in Munchkin Land and never know how he got there. The noise was loud enough that it brought Sargie out of bed and running down the hall. 

Hambone? 

He never stirred.

Monday was a different kind of day, school and all. I set the computer on the dining room table and readied everything before turning the entire process over to Pentoga Road's teacher of the week, Miss Grandma Sargie. Once we found which buttons to push, the rest of school seemed to go well.

Having done my part as Chair of Digital Communications, I gave Sargie the thumbs up and headed out the door for my walk. 

Typical professor, eh? I gave myself a title, ensuring my head remains inflated, thus enabling my nose to be held just a bit higher in the air. 

School was still in session when I arrived home, so I immediately made a bee line for the shop. Yesterday's goal was to make a bowl blank from a piece of spalted birch.

The wood was split, sawed round, and roughly shaped on the lathe to hopefully become a bowl sometime in the future.

I heard pounding outside. School was out, at least for a while, and Hambone was ready to run off some energy.

There are several small, dead, ash trees on the property that need to be taken down and used for firewood. Hambone said he was anxious to help.

There was just one problem, a very small one, but a problem none-the-less.

Jimmy.

Once Hambone discovered his newest bested friend, or vice versa, all bets for helping Pawpaw were off.

While boy and bird were having a love fest, I went ahead and cut the small tree.

Though not hard like maple or oak, ash makes good firewood. It burns for a long time, emitting a high number of BTU's.

It was time to load the wood onto the red four wheeler, but Hambone seemed to be preoccupied elsewhere. He'd found a frozen mud puddle.

 

Just like Grandma Sargie, the boy had to test each and every puddle along the trail. I guess it's a Milligan thing.

Grandma Sargie, two days before. See any similarities?

I finally got Hambone's attention long enough to have him help drag branches to the burn pile, but of course, he had to stomp on, over, or through, each and every puddle along the way.

Late afternoon brought homework. A prerecorded math class was viewed with worksheets to follow.

Last evening was a quiet one. Hambone kept busy trying to put together the puzzle I'd sawed for him last week. If you remember, the boy had made the mistake of telling me that my puzzles were too easy. He found this one a challenge. The last I knew, after an hour of tongue-biting work and only half assembled, he'd given up for the night with a promise to continue later.

There'll be school again this morning and I'll go for a quick walk. The last I heard, there's a chance we may be heading to Green Bay after for groceries and household supplies. Grandma Sargie said she and Hambone could do his lessons in the car on the way down and back.

Works for me.

Time to wake the school marm.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...