A large, tidy stack signals preparation for the next season.
How? Why?
As a fiction writer those are two of my favorite questions to twist with a “what if” and embellish.
This is the American Midwest. I’ll start my short, short, short story with a storm damaging a large tree. I’ll add a tree service with their special equipment but the owner makes a deal to have the truck and larger limbs remain on his property, cut into fireplace sized chunks.
Now I see a father and teenage sons moving the pieces and tipping them on end. Wedges. Axes. Learn by doing. Swing into the wood. Release frustration. Work in a team. Work as punishment. In early morning before the heat makes it unbearable. On a crisp early fall evening.
Carry. Move. Stack. Clean up the scrap for the backyard summer fire pit.
Stand on the porch and savor the result of your labors. Enough fuel for evenings around the fireplace. More than enough for one winter of storm caused power outages.
