Heating up and cooling down...

September has brought some hot, dry winds. The grasses have all turned to straw, and the sunflowers have mostly closed up for the season. The days still carry the heat of summer, but the nights are getting very cool, you might even say cold sometimes. We haven't needed to heat the house or anything, but it is even more imperative to stock up firewood for the winter. We are fortunate that Thomas's brother Daniel works for Philmont Boy Scout Ranch. It means that he take us out to chop down dead trees out in the mountains. This is a wonderful opportunity for us, but also affords the ranch our service to help keep the forests green and reduce the dead materials that would feed a forest fire. I missed out on today's chopping, so I could go to church (I was introduced at mass this morning), but yesterday we had fun. We drove up towards Urraca (pronounced you-rock-uh) and found ourselves a prime spot to start cutting. We only felled one tree and found some recently downed trees. While Thomas took a break from cutting, I picked up his chain saw and went and cut up one tree myself. It was fun to contribute in this way, though I enjoy helping fill up the trucks while the guys do their thing. We moved on after three of the trucks were full, found a meadow to eat our picnic and then filled up one last truck from deadwood in the area. This morning they went back up to that meadow to chop up one that Thomas fell right before we left yesterday (this meant sleeping in a little this morning) and a few more.

Marie tending to Daniel's chainsaw wound...nothing severe. David checking out his chainsaw... Our littlest logger, Sara entertained herself with the animals (stuffed ones, that is). Mike & Alice's truck full of wood for splitting. A view of the Tooth of Time as we drove down for lunch.