Yes, I said Poulin. I was no purist, nor was Thoreau. Some might have chided me for not using a handsaw, but I was a realist. Even with ample time on my hands, there was no way I could cut a winter's worth of firewood with a handsaw. Thoreau was a realist, too; he had the cabin on the pond, but he still liked to slip away to Concord for dinner parties every now and then.
The handsaw wouldn't have been of much use with the thicker logs. I'm no lumberjack, either in physique or temperament. I'm a thinker who has retreated to these Northwoods for reflection, for escape from the pettiness of civilization, for quiet to struggle with writing my memoir. I need the firewood to burn, to keep myself from freezing to death in the depths of this coming winter. I don't need to saw firewood merely for the intrinsic satisfaction.
I doubt there is any such intrinsic satisfaction, not for me at least.
The log sections were still too large to burn at first, meaning I would have to cut them down further. But there would be no sepia-toned character-defining sessions with an axe, or a wedge and sledgehammer, as I split the logs. No, the Poulin would have to do.
I needed heat, not memorable events suitable for future reminiscing. Food was another matter, but at least I would have heat.
The heat sustained me, and the light was just enough to work by. The latest notebook stood open on the roughly-hewn pine table, and somehow the words came to me, from the inner reaches of my mind, through my fingers and ballpoint pen, and onto the narrow-ruled page.
