The snake

Yesterday, Halloween, was just a nice day. The weather was perfect. I planted about 100 black walnuts in the big garden. It was warm but I still had to hoe a couple of inches of snow to make a row. Now, if they grow...spring will tell.
The rosie reds were in schools swimming in the new pond enjoying the warm sunshine. It was the first time I saw them swimming in schools (about three groups of them). It was neat.
Mike and John showed up and we went up back in the woods to begin cutting up an old beech tree that fell down one day in July almost a year and a half ago. I was walking up the foot path that day with the Yaw. It was warm, sunny, clear blue sky and very calm.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash and the woods became brighter. The tree, likely well over 100 years old, was on the ground hardly 75 feet away.
Last winter I cut some of the branches for firewood but my chain saw wasn't able to really cut the larger branches or the trunk. When Mike and John saw the tree a couple weeks ago, they decided it was worth the time and effort to harvest the rest of the wood.
We spent most of the afternoon cutting and splitting that tree. It was a great afternoon to be in the woods. During a short break, we saw the snake in the sawdust. It was a small snake, maybe eight inches. I am thinking maybe it was hibernating in the tree and we woke it up. It didn't have a real good attitude.
We got to thinking about seeing a snake on Halloween and shortly we were back in my kitchen eating a loaf of bread I made in the bread machine. It is a day, an afternoon actually, I'll likely never forget.
I think I might have close to enough wood for the rest of winter. Yesterday, Jeff also split quite a bit of wood, maybe upwards of a chord. That is in addition to the other chord or so that I had cut and stacked over the last couple months. Once I get the Halloween wood down here, I am thinking I have close to four chords of firewood. It will be a warm January and February and some memories of some good times.