City Savages

I posted in August telling everyone that I am not a city slicker. I still don't think I am, but boy have things changed for me. We had a little roasting session a few nights ago. When I was getting the fire ready, I was trying to find some dry wood. I have a bunch of logs out by the fire pit, but they were wet and frozen on one side. We borrowed an ax from our amazing neighbors and I chopped a few of the logs into smaller pieces and we threw the dry ones in the fire.
Today I finally got around to cleaning up our fire pit. I had left matches, roasting sticks, chairs, and a few other things out there. I wanted to split all of the logs I had out there before I returned the ax, while I still had the use of it. So this afternoon I went out and split wood. I can not begin to tell you how good it felt to swing that ax like I meant it, in the nice fall air, not needing a jacket on, while seeing leaves all over the ground, all alone. For some reason I just loved those few minutes out there. I didn't want it to end. I wanted a huge pile of wood to go through. ( I would have thought otherwise the next morning!) I loved splitting the wood, by the way, I don't want to brag, but I really can us an ax quite well.
One of my chores growing up was getting a bucket of chips in every night for the fire. Some of you are wondering, what in the world are chips, and I will tell you. The wood stove at my parents house lights up great if you have nice, small wood chips to get it going. Sometimes I could scrounge around and find enough chips at the wood pile to fill up my bucket, but I usually had to make them. Make them meaning split a log into 20 smaller pieces for chips. My brother Glen had to take a wheel barrow load of wood he split down to the back porch every night as part of his chores. When he went away to college, I got to take over the wood job and my sister Tori got to take over the chips job. You know, it was kind of a fire wood hierarchy at our house! I have to admit that playing basketball in high school got me out of getting the wood in alot of nights, but it was still my job and I did it most of the time. Anyway, I know how to chop and split wood pretty well. Which brings me back to my point---

I must be starting to turn into a 'City Savage' (that is my dad's phrase) because I sure missed splitting wood. I enjoyed every single second out there today. I was disappointed when all the logs were in slivered pieces all around me. I wanted to keep chopping. I think there is some strange satisfaction in physical labor that brings you closer to yourself. Makes alot of sense doesn't it?? Closer to yourself?!?! How can that happen? I might not be able to explain myself very well, but I do know that growing up where I did, doing my chores, taught me something good that alot of people never get to learn.