Every few days, I have been grabbing a couple of logs from my fast diminishing woodpile to split for kindling. As I think I noted previously, I needed something to split the logs against, and I have been using a massive piece of scrap wood, a former support beam that I take to have been a leftover from the 1968 house remodel.

As I have cut against it with varying futility, I was somewhat amazed to discover that the beam is solid cedar. I noted this one afternoon as I emerged from my car after work and was astounded by the sharp, lovely scent of fresh-cut cedar emerging from the half-century-old wood.

On my way in to town today, I noticed a two-foot stump by the side of the road along a public greensward. On arriving home this afternoon, I hefted the accursedly heavy thing and stumbled up the hill to my yard, where it now awaits the woodsman’s axe. Fetch the tumbril.