It's Happy Hump Day. Today we serve up yet another lesson in humility learned the hard way. We all have days where things seem to go exactly the way we want them. Those are the days most likely to end in a ball of flame. Usually because we decide to push our good fortune just a little bit beyond what it can handle. It is the lesson that goes like this. Just because all the hard stuff went well, don't expect the easy stuff to end well.
The day I learned this lesson was when I was a teen in Iowa. I still didn't have my license and I had just gotten permission to hunt without adult supervision. Thus it was that I headed out looking for some sport. Namely, squirrels. Early on, the day went well. I found a spot and got my limit before lunch. My dog had joined me and we started walking home. Along the way, we took sometime out and did a little target practice and continued on. It was a perfect day. After we got home, I dressed the squirrels (skinned and cut them up for you non hunters) and put them in the freezer. It was only about one in the afternoon, so I had the entire day ahead of me.
I was all smiles until dad pointed to the wood pile and informed me that we needed wood split for the next few days. I figured, that since the day was going so well, how bad could it be. I only had about 10 logs to split. For those of you who have never had to split wood, fell lucky. It is hard work. Even if you are dealing with a semi soft wood like fir, you still have to put a good amount of effort into it. This means that when you get to hard woods like oak, you have your work cut out for you. As I started splitting the wood, my spirits started to rise. That was until I got to log number five. It was only about a foot in diameter which meant I could quarter it and I would be done. It wasn't until the ax bounced off of the log and nearly hit me in the face that I noticed what kind of wood it was. Hedge. I heard that groan from those of you who have dealt with it. For those of you (once again, lucky people), who have never dealt with this particular wood, it is also called Iron Wood and for very good reason. Most wood, you could split a couple of trees before you need to sharpen your axe. Not Iron wood. You don't use and axe on iron wood, you use wedges and a 12 pound sledge hammer. Iron wood refuses to split except under extreme circumstances and you only use the chainsaw to cut it down to workable lengths if you want the chainsaw to last more than one season. That's also when I realized that the remaining 5 logs were also iron wood. I was doomed. I drug out the sledge and wedges and got to work. By supper time, I had the first log split and had two wedges buried in the second. That's when dad informed me that he was thinking about getting a hydraulic log splitter. I begged and he smiled. We never got one and to this day I can't look at a hunk of hedge with out shuddering. I have since split a lot of wood of all types, but nothing has ever been as tough as those 6 pieces of hedge. It took me almost 4 days to get it done and I learned my lesson. Just when you think things are going great and will always be easy, hedge happens.
Have a wonderful day.
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