Even though the days are sunny and warm and winter seems years away, I know it is coming!
And my uber prepared husband has been on the hunt for wood to keep us warm when it does get here.

Living on an island, in a loaner house, means wood can sometimes be hard to source. Even though we are surrounded by trees, they are not ours to cut, and nor would fresh wood make good burning.

So when hubby found 4 cords of wood for sale he leapt at the chance to get it and load our empty shed up for the winter.

Four cords… that is a lot of wood.

He did the first load himself and came home sweaty and full of splinters.  With pumped up motivation he convinced the kids and I to pitch in for future loads.

Yes, the kids – even the 3 year old…

With 3 cords left, and 3 miserable kids who were not interested in helping, hubby and I dug deep into ourselves for the creativity to get them going. We dragged them out of the truck, gloved them up and waited for the magic to begin… and waited….

You see, my hubby and I have found our parenting groove, that sweet spot you go to when the kids are crumbling and you are putting  your energy into keeping everyone from a meltdown. The times when you finally hit the nail on the head and achieve bliss. Teamwork, laughter!

Somehow we found it again today.

There were a few brief beautiful moments in our firewood loading where all the kids were lined up and tossing logs in a line, loading was smooth and laughter was in abundance. We were sweaty and itchy and covered in sap, and we were working together.

We loaded the wood, and came home battered, bruised and filled with slivers. But we had performed a job well done, and each of us will be grateful everytime we throw a log on the fire this winter.

Now, to keep working on those slivers…