It’s been very chilly for this part of the world; yesterday the Prince insisted he knew how to split wood. I found the axe, he rolled out the cedar chopping-block the guys were kind enough to leave us (more about that in a moment), and by golly and garters, he split wood. He used a rubber mallet to wedge-and-maul a lot of it, I am told, and he was so proud. This achievement matched that of the Princess, who built her very first fire from scratch (instead of using a Duraflame log) while I was busy battling the hordes at the grocery store.
We have the firewood because of the cedar that came down in the backyard during that awful windstorm. The neighbor across the back fence got the rest of the cedars taken out wholesale (barring two small survivors to the north of the fir tree) a few days ago, and now when I glance out my window there’s…a house, instead of the green screen of beautiful trees.
This is not ideal, but given that the whole row went into shock when he had some fly-by-night grifters–who had no clue what they were doing, and overpriced as well–come out to “trim” some of the cedars years ago, it was inevitable. His bad choices have had consequences, and despite that I’m being gracious.
For now.
There are still a core of reasonable people masking up in public places, and for that I am grateful. Masked folks are allowed much further into my personal space than disease-breathing naked-facers, and I hope some of the latter have been shamed by my visible (even behind my own mask) disgust with their complete lack of sense.
I finally got to the attack on the elvish city yesterday; it was a good day’s work. I do think I have to go back and rethread the final bits of it, since I want a particular person to find the narrator as she stands watching doom approach. But that’s easy enough, and I know precisely what happens for the next eight thousand words or so. I’ve been looking forward to this, especially the section titled Naciel’s Run, for well over a year. I like letting things marinate, sure, but I was actually unable to work on this book due to stoppage at the publisher end instead of the usual reasons.
I can only hope it will have deepened with the waiting.
It should warm up to the usual damp winter chill by tomorrow, but we’ve one more frigid day. I suppose once Boxnoggin is walked I’ll clean the fireplace and get another blaze going. The cedar smells lovely, even if I would rather have the trees, and it takes a lot of pressure off the heating system. The dog, of course, was extremely hesitant about a change, but soon realized he could bask in his nice cushioned bed, radiant heat bathing his every hair, and has grudgingly decided this is acceptable as long as the humans are closely supervised while poking at the warmy-box.
Imbolc has passed and the light strengthens. My office is far too bright; hopefully we’ll get something else planted as a privacy screen once the fence is repaired. If it’s not one thing, it’s another–and now my coffee is finished and Boxnoggin needs his walkies.
Onward to Thursday. Here’s hoping it’s a quiet one, I have the ruin of a city to write…