The Madness in the fire. Chapter 4. Atonement.

This chapter is dedicated to my friend Jenny P.  who told me not to give up but to use what I am given.



Dawn reached the tattered land and cast a grey shadow upon the blackness of the retreating night.   An acrid breeze stirred the air and rustled the needles on a gnarled old pine.  The needles clinging to the branches fell to the ground.  The edge of the forest lay silent, the songs of birds had been vanquished from the land, the ages old songs of the crickets, hailing the new day, no longer drifted in the morning thermals.  Nothing stirred.  The forest stood its ground but with a heavy heart.  It was rotting.  Dying.  The life was slowly withering away inside of it and without it the forest could no longer keep breathing.

Smoke drifted from a small bed of coals.  Tendrils floated and weaved their way towards the great greyness in the sky.  A muted shade of sunlight tried in vain to break the sadness.  It no longer held sway over the land as the dust storms increased in intensity and the air grew thick while it gorged on the land.

A young boy buried in a sleeping bag began to stir.  He pulled his head from the sleeping bag and watched as his mother and father began packing up their tiny little encampment.  He knew that their would be no breakfast this morning, just as there was no supper last night.  His belly growled.  He was hungry.
It had been three days now since they had eaten.  Without asking any questions he rolled out onto the cold ground and began to bundle his sleeping bag.  Not a word was said as they packed.

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The old game trail meandered in and out of the dead forest.  The group stayed tight to the edge for cover.  Not too long in the past it had held an abundance of tracks made from the animals in the forest.  Now the only tracks were from the trio as they trudged their way down its dusty path.  Each footfall created a small puff of dust that coated the travellers feet and legs. Once a place of frequent rain and moss covered logs the forest had changed as the air sucked the life and moisture from it.  So they trudged.  Looking for any signs of life, food or water.

For days now they had travelled along the edge of the forest, the highway on the left and the forest on the right.  Far in the distance, past the highway lay the dreadful ocean and its burning currents.  The trio moved north.  They had heard rumour that north was the way to go.  The cold ocean currents had moved the toxins quickly to the south and it was said that while even though the land was hit hard it was beginning to regenerate.  There was also a rumour of a settlement ran by the Canadians and that they still had guns for protection, crops, fresh water and medicine.

They were searching for the gateway, the sign that would lead them to the settlement.  It was the reason they had stayed so close to the deadly ocean and in the distance it was just visible through the hazy sky.  The bridge over the Columbia River in Astoria.  Hopefully the bridge was still intact.  Once crossed then they could make their way through the mountains north by northeast and hopefully reach Calgary before the snow began to fly.

-----------------------
Cautiously the group made their way closer to the bridge using the dilapidated houses as cover.  Not much remained of the town.  As with any other town or village they came across most were burnt through.  Scavenging anything was highly unlikely as any buildings left standing had already been searched by previous travellers or hordes of outlaws.  A block away the man tucked his family into a faded yellow bungalow, untouched by fire.  He hugged them both and whispered, "Stay hidden and don't make any noise, search the cupboards for any supplies you can find.  Once I see it is safe I will come back and get you and we will cross".
This was old routine and they knew it well.  As he turned the corner they began to search.  Quietly and quickly, making sure to duck or crawl under any windows openings so as not to be seen from anyone who may be lurking outside.  The first stop was the kitchen.  It was an easy search as the cupboard doors had all been ripped from their hinges, most likely burnt for warmth.  Nothing in the kitchen, so they crawled down the hall and searched the bedrooms.  An old moth eaten blanket lay in the corner of the far bedroom.  A rat skeleton lay on top of it.  She reached out and picked it up, flicking the blanket and sending the rat bones rattling into the corner.  She folded up the blanket and stuffed it in her pack.  The only thing left in the rooms were rotting mattresses.  Everything had been scavenged or burned.  They made their way back into the front room of the house and sat down against the wall opposite the door.  A TV with the screen broken out of it lay strewn in the corner.  A moldy couch adorned one wall and a matching love seat the other.  In between them was a closet door.  She crab walked over to the door, staying out of sight of the front window and turned the tarnished, brass handle.  It opened with a creak and she peered into the darkness.  The closet was empty and as she turned her head something caught her eye.  Stuffed back in the corner was a short squat object.  She reached into the closet and removed it from its hiding place.  It was a can.  The label was almost all worn away but she could read the words, BAKED BEA.  Quickly she zipped it into her back pack.  Whatever may happen she knew they would be eating dinner tonight.
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The man approached the bridge and even from a half block away he could hear voices.  His heart sank.  Using the overturned, burned out hulks of cars as cover he edged closer.  A man stood on top of the toll booth at the entrance of the bridge.  He wore long black robes and held a book high over his head.
Perched on concrete parking abutments was a large group of people, close to twenty by his estimates.
They were swaying back and forth as the man in the black robes chanted.  He moved a little closer to hear what the man was saying.

Opening the book in his hand the man in black carried on his lament, " And Christ said to the disciples, do you not love me?  For I am he.  I am your savior".  Slamming the book into his palm he surveyed his crowd.
"I have been sent by God to deliver you unto him, the way to eternal life is through me."
Closing his book he addressed them, "Do not believe in this life but the one after, for this one is dead".
The lord has sent me here to you this time instead of his only son.  I will be your salvation.  I am the light which you will follow." Raising his voice to almost a scream he began again, "Bow down and repent your sins.  It is your fault that this has happened and you must atone for your sins, there is no other way".

He watched as the people dropped to their knees and began wailing in the dirt.  The man atop the booth raised his hands in victory and began to sing.  He turned to head back to the bungalow and was met with a chunk of lumber upside the head, he fell to his back, dazed and watched dream like as another blow with the piece of wood knocked him unconscious.

Where do we go from here?

So what do you talk about when there is nothing to talk about?
I've put the book on the back burner.  You would think with all of this "free" time I have right now that I would be banging out pages left and right but unfortunately my brain is stuck on this new task at work.  I'm sure it will pass in a few weeks but right now I can't go more than 5 minutes without some thought drifting into my mind.  It's hard to concentrate on anything.  It can wait.  It's been waiting for almost 40 years now another few weeks won't hurt.  Winter is starting to take its toll on me.

I watched an interview with the Dalai Lama this morning.  Apparently he has a twitter account but he isn't the one who uses it.  I laughed because he is comical with his reasonings on why.  His fingers won't work the little machine he said.  The interviewer asked him what was the key to happiness and of course it had to be in tweet fashion of 140 characters or less of which the dalai paid no attention but to paraphrase it he said,

"More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for other's well-being, is source of happiness."
"Self-centered attitudes, he said, are at the root of unhappiness and human suffering."

“Too much self-centered attitude, you see, brings, you isolation,” he said. “Result: loneliness, fear, anger. The extreme self-centered attitude is the source of suffering.”

Words to live by.  The Buddhists live such a simple life.  Pure, violence free and not fat from greed.

The next thing I read this morning was about the greed of the archdiocese in New Jersey.  Building a huge addition to the bishops already monstrous retirement home while they are closing schools because there is no money.  It's OK though because they sold some properties that they owned which were no longer needed and used that money to build this addition which has multiple fireplaces and a whirlpool.

Such contradictory views on life.  It's sad.  We live in such a cruel world.  I have questioned my beliefs all my life.  Being raised to believe in God and Jesus and doing so because that's what you were supposed to do.  I often wonder if it isn't all made up.  Started only to keep people from doing bad things.  The Bible is simply a fictionalized tool to set guidelines for us.  After thousands of years of it being pounded into our heads it stands as the truth.  I'm not saying it is bad because it is about love and caring and kindness as well as a few other things like not killing each other!

I watched a video the other day (I wish I wouldn't have) on FB.  It said watch and share, we are trying to spread this around so the cops can catch this lady who abused this child.  I clicked.

The video was of a lady beating an infant.  The infant was maybe 9 months or so.  She beat it with a pillow, she slapped its face, she pinched the living hell out if its arm.  Kicked it repeatedly.   Just when the poor thing would stop crying she would start again.

I cried a little, I wanted to vomit.  I wanted to kill that lady over and over again.
I thought to myself, "there can not possibly be a God."  "No God would let this happen".
Now what?  What do you do when that crosses your heart.
Makes a person retreat.

Then I see a little ray of hope out of an old man living in the mountains of Tibet who the Chinese would love to see dead.  He says be compassionate and do not be self centered.

The world is dying.  Where do we go from here?
I'm not sure there are enough left who care.

I will try to be a better person, care a little more, love a little more.  Do what is right not what is convenient.
I won't do it for God or Jesus, I won't do it for the Dalai or the little fat Buddha statue.  I won't do it for me.  I will do it for that little baby.  That is something I can believe in.


Sun shines through my window
burning through the blinds
casting bars on the wall
hope is locked

The heart shivers,
wrapped in the warmth
Waiting for the sun to retreat,
and open its bars.

Hiding in the truth,
protecting its lies
And hiding in the lies
because of the truth.


-Bushman

New Beginnings and Old Weather

Thunder boomed in the distance.  Rolling through the air, resonating power and proclaiming the arrival of the storm.  Lighting flashed in the portal that served as a window.  The building shook as the deafening booms rocked the structure.

The man walked to the window, eyebrows raised.  What is this nonsense?  It is February.

Outside the tiny window, in the overhead door, the scene was complete whiteout.  The snow fell from the sky as if all the power of the icy heavens were directed on this one small spot.

Thundersnow!  The man had only witnessed it once before.

Within 2 short hours the snow pile up 4 inches thick.  Wet and heavy with snowflakes the size of half dollars.

More people rushed to the windows to stare in awe at the immense amount of snowfall.

Just as quickly it faded away into a light drizzle of rain and rapidly evolved into a rainstorm.  It rained most of the day and melted away almost all of the new snow.  Temperatures climbed into the upper 40s and held steady until night when they began to plummet and the winds picked up to a sustained 20 mph blow with heavy gusts which greeted the morning's dismal sunrise.

The wet slush began to freeze.

The man poured another cup of coffee and rubbed his sleeping yellow dog's belly.

He shook his head and sighed.

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Crazy weather.  It is the norm.  You think I'd be used to it by now.

Not much going on right now.  It is after all winter.  I'm over it.

My news from last post is still unofficial but the announcement is going out this coming Monday so I'll spill it. Some already know anyways!

I have been assigned a temporary promotion at work.  The first assignment will last three months and be evaluated after that.  I see it going way beyond that and possibly into a full position but it is my choice to excel or screw it up.

In our business we manufacture Firetruck and Motorhome chassis.  We build other vehicles as well but for the point of this post we will leave it at that.  In my plant we build the firetruck chassis and also put the cab on it.  The cab is built across the parking lot at another plant and then moved to out plant to be integrated with the chassis.  I have been doing this job for around 7/8 years.  My immediate position is a Team Lead over a group of people who build and install specific components on the chassis.

My group consists of the people building the axles, building the engines and building the radiators.  My group also consists of the people installing the engines and the radiators into the chassis and also the people installing the exhaust components into the chassis.  Last but not least are the people who integrate the cab onto the chassis.  A great bunch of people who do really great work.  They do all the work, I simply manage the problems that may arise, assist in any engineering issues we may have, fill in for them if they are absent and a bunch of other menial tasks that are too boring to discuss.

In the years working here I have worked hard at organizing and facilitating a better workplace for all of us.

Last winter I began an unofficial program to organize and streamline some of our processes.  It was met with a little hesitation at first but my areas demonstrated a willingness and open minded approach and it was met with pretty good success.  As with anything, there were a few quirks but we managed to work them out.

I can't say enough about the immediate group of people I work with and how THEY ultimately made this a success and a stepping stone for bigger and better things.

In our world competition is fierce.  We are in the top five of the the nation for producing custom firetruck chassis's.

We want to be number one.  In order to do that we need to build a better product, consistently, cheaper and at a higher standard than our competition.  Only then will we grow.  It starts with every person in the company working as one unit to achieve solidarity.  How do we do that?

In my area of the company it begins with eliminating waste.  I'm not talking about actual refuse, even though that pertains too, but waste in the form of time loss, overprocessing, bad engineering, internal defects and the list goes on and on.  These are a few of the things that we have a responsibility to change.

After WWII the Japanese came to America to see how Henry Ford was able to manage such a monumental task as the automobile production assembly line.  The founder of Toyota was impressed at the capabilities but dismayed at the amount of waste it took to process these automobiles.  He went back to Japan and assembled a team to help reduce these wastes of manufacturing.  They came up with 5S.

5S is a set of Japanese words.  Seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke.  Translated into English they read; Sort, Set, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.

These steps are the building blocks of lean manufacturing.  A great place to start eliminating waste.

The sort step involves the clearing of any un needed items in the entire plant.  People tend to hoard things based on history and prior experiences in a non lean manufacturing environment.  These need to be cleaned up.  Only what you need to do your job is left.

The set stage is about putting everything in its place.  Not just placing things randomly but having a purpose behind everything.  There is a reason that it needs to be there.  It is about establishing a process flow so the worker is not making extra movements to do his/her job.

The shine stage is about total cleaning.  Clean everything inside and out.  Simple enough.  A cleaner workplace is more productive, healthier and is a showcase for your work.

The standardize step is about creating guidelines for everything you did in the first three steps.  How you propose to keep the first three from falling apart.  It involves training everyone exactly the same so there is no question on how things need to be done.  It also involves standardizing everything in the plant.  Nothing is too small.  Nothing is overlooked.  Color coding plays an important part in this.  Work center A has a yellow trash can and a yellow broom and dust pan.  Work center B has a red can, broom and pan.  You can clearly tell something is out of standard when a red tool shows up in a yellow tool's spot.  We have a huge number of customers that tour our plants and this is where it really pays off.  If we can pay such minute attention to the littlest of details like brooms and dust pans then it must translate into our workmanship and it should and it will!

The last step is the sustain step.  This step is all about following the rules and guidelines i the previous step to keep everything in perfect harmony.  It makes no sense to do the first four steps and not follow through with the last.

We recently made some big moves in our plants.  Our motorhome chassis division has moved into the same building as our firetruck chassis.  You can imagine the amount of work that needs to be done to make both of these divisions run smooth.

This is where my new job comes in.  I have been tasked with implementing the 5S program for both divisions as well as being on a team which will be evaluating our process flows and determining a better and more economical way of doing things.

It is a herculean task.  I accept it wholeheartedly.  It's not about the money (believe me!) or the prestige at all.  This job is going to be downright dirty and thankless in the beginning.  Not many people like change.  I will bear the brunt of the burden and many will not like what I have been assigned.  I'm Ok with that.

My reason for accepting it?

I am proud of what I do.  I build the trucks that help the people that save your lives.  It is an awesome thing to know that what you do everyday can make such a huge impact.  I want to see the company grow.  I have another 20 years before I retire.  I want to make sure of my future.  I don't see how letting someone else dictate every move that alters my future is a responsible way to live.  If I can better my job and my life and those of the people I work with then why shouldn't I?  Why shouldn't any of us?  If you can't agree with that then I strongly believe you don't belong in our work force.

It boils down to American Pride.  Pride in what we do.  It is what our country was founded on and it is what our country is slipping away from.  I'm proud to do my part, proud to stand up and fight for what I believe in even if the sacrifices are heavy in the beginning.

So there you have it.  My new job starts Monday.  I will be doing this on top of my already existing job so it will be a bust spring.  I look forward to it.

Watch this video

I saw this little comic yesterday which explains Michigan weather perfect.

Fantastic!

Happy Saturday!
The coffee is strong and hot and the wood stove has it toasty in the house.  Two dogs are splayed out on the couch, snoring and twitching their paws as they chase dream chipmunks deep into the snowy woods.
My nose picks up the lovely fragrances of my wife exiting the shower.  Sweet smells that make me want to bury my nose between her neck and shoulder and inhale deeply as if she were a warm spring day.

A few weak rays of sunshine are filtering through the blinds on the eastern side of the house.  The sun is rising and is also moving north.  Getting stronger day by day.

Life is pretty good.

There is some good news on the work front.  Something that could ultimately be a big stepping stone for my career.  I can't indulge until it is made public on Monday.

I have surrendered on the snowmobile project and removed the carburetor and am sending it out to be re-built.
A co-worker was nice enough to bring his big tractor to my house and plow out a road to my wood piles.  Now I can drive my truck up the hill to fetch the weekly quota of firewood.

Momma picked up a new frisbee for yellow dog last night.  It even lights up!  Guess who was playing frisbee at 10 pm last night in the deep snow in the back yard?

The weather has begun to break just a tad.  We have seen 30 degrees twice in the last week or so.  Forecast is showing high 30s and a couple 40s in the coming week.

Taking Momma out to dinner tonight for our Valentines Day Date because she had to work last night.

Last night I prepared a tasty dinner.  Shrimp and bacon linguine.  Very simple to make.  Fry up some bacon until crispy, remove from pan, add raw shrimp and minced garlic, saute until almost cooked, add chopped up bacon, cooked linguine noodles, heavy cream, a handful of halved cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper and finish cooking for a few minutes.  Top with some fresh chopped scallions.  15 minutes total.  Delicious!



Let's hope this weekend continues to be good!

Cheers,
-Bushman

The Madness in the Fire Chapter 3. He who controls nature...dies by nature.

The day was unlike no other.  Blue skies with an occasional wisp of clouds.  Cherry blossoms were beginning to adorn the trees and the sun was so bright it sparkled off the waves in the ocean.  Dancing happily as spring festooned its wealth upon the land.
A few fishing boats, clad in their bright colors bobbed in the surf as they cast nets in hopes of procuring a marketable catch.
A gentle breeze fluttered the white flag with the red circle in its center.  A glorious day to be alive the man thought as he walked down the steel grated catwalk on his afternoon rounds.
Today was a good day, his son was turning 14 and they had reservations for dinner at his favorite restaurant that evening. He smiled in anticipation.  He had received excellent news that morning at the shift change meeting.  They had shut down reactors 5 and 6 for maintenance which would take the better part of the week so his vacation time had been granted.  He had been planning a family vacation to the high country to take in the beauty of spring.  Every year for as long as he had worked at the plant he had put in for this time off but had always been denied because of short staffing.  This year the Gods were smiling on him.

At the end of the catwalk he peered into a cavity in the wall to read the levels on the meter.  He recorded them onto a sheet clipped to his clipboard and promptly made his way to the next meter.  Three steps into his walk the catwalk began to shake violently.  He dropped his clipboard and grabbed the railing.
The shaking intensified and the man dropped to his knees, clinging to the railing.  Red stains began to appear on the knees of his white jumpsuit as the sharp steel grating shook ceaselessly, cutting into the flesh of his knees creating red circles in a sea of white.

Alarms began to pierce the morning air as the entire world seemed to shake itself apart.  All around him pieces of steel and concrete began to burst apart and fall to the ground.  He clung to the steel with everything he had as it peeled away from the corrugated grating underfoot suspending him in mid air 20 foot above the concrete below.  With a shriek the metal began to tear from its anchoring point and luckily for the man clinging to life at the end, it slowly peeled itself away from the superstructure lowering him to within 8 feet of the ground where he lost his grip and landed on the concrete below.  In a terror he scrambled out of the way as the clutter of torn steel fell to the ground missing him by mere inches.

It was only then did he realize what was happening as the earthquake, which would later be measured at 8.9, ripped his world apart.  He could only lay there, the ground was shaking too much to stand and he clung to all hope that his family was safe.

Within 3 minutes the main quake was over.  Dazed and frightened the man stood up.  All around him were the sounds of panic.  Sirens and alarms wailed into the morning and the screams of people shattered his hypnotic gaze.  Smoke billowed, black as night, clouding up the once brilliant, blue sky.

He rushed into action, years of training at the reactor were now coming into play.
 In the event of a catastrophe,his job along with a team of 6 others, was to make sure the backup generators were running as planned in the event of a power failure.  He was sure the power was out.
Running along the corridor, which he had fallen into, he made his way to the main generator room for reactor numbers one through three.  Even before he made it inside he could see the black exhaust from the diesel fired generators pouring out of the vents.  The system had done its job and he gave a short sigh of relief.  Now he just needed to maintain them.

The system was designed to automatically shut down the fission inside of the reactor by inserting cadmium clad rods directly into the core, this effectively shut down the reactions as the release of neutrons were absorbed by the negative charge in the rods.  This procedure is known as SCRAM.  However in an emergency the generators were needed to pump water into the reactor to cool down the rods which still maintained decay heat from the SCRAM procedure.  This is where his job was most important.  Without the generators pumping water a cataclysmic failure would happen.

The generators were all working properly and the man quickly checked all the criticals on his back up computer screen.  The generators not only ran the pumps but also served as primary power to all of the computers and circuitry which automatically controlled the cooling process of the rods within the core of the reactor.

Once he was sure everything was stable he removed a small cell phone from his jumpsuit pocket and dialed the number for his home telephone.  He received the standard greeting from the operator that informed him that service was not available at this time and he should try back later.  He quickly dialed his wife's cell phone. After a few scratchy rings it connected and his wife's voice came through the earpiece, "Hi you've reached the phone of....." He slammed the phone shut and stuffed it back into his pocket.  He needed to find his supervisor and get home quick to check on his family.

He raced out the door and back down the corridor towards the front of the complex.  Debris littered the ground everywhere.  He made it to the gated opening that faced the ocean and the service drive to reactor 3 and stopped dead in his tracks.

A 30 foot wall of water was racing across the ocean headed directly for him.  He turned to run but knew it was all in vain.  He made it back into the corridor just as the 30 foot wall of water crashed over the 20 foot seawall sending thousands of gallons of water coursing through the corridor quickly engulfing the man and all that lay in its path.

The water that coursed over the underbuilt seawall and raced through the corridor was now racing through the open doors of the building that housed all of the generators, filling them with enormous amounts of seawater.  As the water in the building reached levels over waist high the generators began to suck sea water into their intakes and began to choke out one by one which cut off the supply of electricity to the pumps and in turn, cold water to the reactors.
Next to be engulfed by the water were the electrical cooling boards and the back up computer systems. Once these shorted out the back up battery system kicked in, once again turning on the pumps which supplied the water to cool the rods within the reactor.  The safety system was still in control for the moment.

The entire seaboard was systematically  devastated as the earthquake tore it apart and the resulting tsunami washed it into the sea.  Anything the main quake missed the multiple aftershocks shook it into submission.
The countryside was ruined.

A day later as the water began to reside within the flooded corridor between reactors 2 and 3 a man's body floated up from underneath a torn steel cat walk, slowly floating in the current headed for the sea.  As it passed from the corridor more alarms began to sound as the backup batteries began to run out of power but no one was around to hear them.
The pumps quieted and soon the alarms ceased and by the time the body floated out to sea the rods within the core had begun to melt.  Soon they would begin pumping their poison into the sea through the cracks in the reactor walls caused by the quake and it's many aftershocks.

There was no fix, there was no cure and within 2 years the poisons would reach far into the Pacific killing everything it encountered.  The North Pacific current carried the toxins as far as Alaska and brought them crashing down into the California coast via the California Current which would ultimately sweep it southward to be picked up by the Equatorial Countercurrent as well as the South Equatorial Current.  From there it was only a matter 20 years and the Antarctic circumpolar current would carry its devastation throughout the known world.

It was here in this time that a young boy dreamed of the burning California beach waters, it is here where everything died or was in the process of dying.  It was in this moment when the human race panicked and abandoned all posts and when the world's nuclear reactors all began to fail because the people who ran them either died or fled.

It was in this time that the world realized that there was a Madness in the Fire.

It Has Begun...Be Strong I Say....Be Strong

Darkness concealed in white
The cold dead evil lurks
Sucking and biting
Stealing your breath

Frozen skin withers,
away and dead.
Ice builds ceaseless,
as winds howl into the night.

Blinded by the white,
burnt into eternity.
The doldrums repeat
over and again

I lay down to sleep,
in a coffin of crystals.
The purity deceives me
I struggle to be brave

Locked into the grasp,
of the cold, steel arms.
I long to hope,
but only feel despair.

Drifting.......

Amidst the Snow and Ice He Rests

The wind blew fiercely at the single pane window.  Rattling it, knocking as if to come in.  The house shook with the intensity of the gale forces at hand.  Snow whipped itself into a fury and screamed in rage at being denied entrance.  The icy cold grip on the house grew stronger as crystals began to form in the corners of the glass.
The man inside eyed the windows cautiously, he wasn't certain they would hold up to such devilish weather.
He descended the 12 steps to the lower level slowly, a hand gripping the rail at all times.  White knuckles portrayed a weakness that only the railing could hold.  Step by step he descended.  On the 9th step he stopped.  He was dizzy and beginning to sweat.  Minutes rolled by as the fury of the storm increased.

Rested, he finished his descent and crossed the wooden floor to the wood stove on the other end of the room.  Carefully he knelt down to avoid a sudden dizzy spell.  He was alone and the last thing he needed was to fall head first into the fire.  He opened the door and the flush of heat greeted him with a fierce loyalty that only he could know.   Sweat beaded his brow with the new wave of heat.  He removed a few logs from the piles stacked on either side of the stove.  Carefully he placed them into the firebox.  Situating them perfectly to attain a premium burn.  The precise combination of heat and longevity.  Once finished he closed the doors and made his way back upstairs.

He removed a water bottle from the refrigerator, two orange capsules from the blister pack on the counter and made his way back to the couch.  With a grimace he swallowed the pills and laid down heavily.  Pulling the fleece throw up tight to his chin he drifted off to sleep
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It really sucks being sick.  I started to feel a tightness in my chest on Thursday and knew what was about to happen.  I haven't been sick in a few years so I was due.  I spent all day yesterday on the couch.  I was running a fever most of the day and it began to subside in the evening.  Today I am just slightly over temp but any movement or just a sip of coffee has me breaking out in sweats again.  Dizziness, burning chest congestion and awful body aches.  I have never had such body aches as this bug has given me.
So I have to medicate myself carefully with cold medicine and a combination of acetaminophen and ibuprofen to control the fever.  I'm just glad it's the weekend and I don't have to miss work.  No way could I work like this.
Haven't been doing much as of late.  Sorta hunkering down as winter has its way with us.  Whipping winds are blowing snow into huge drifts, below zero temps make anything outside unbearable.  Today we are getting more snow.  No wood cutting because I can't get back to the wood lot.  Heck I can't even get to my own woodstacks.  The last 2 weeks I have got my truck stuck just trying to bring in my weekly load of wood.
I've just about had it with this winter.  Winter is usually enjoyable for me but this stuff is just brutal.  Not a normal winter by any means.  I just hope it straightens up so we can enjoy the last few weeks of it.
I have burned quite a lot of wood this year and I really need to bolster my supplies for the next few years.
On a great sidenote now that we have this wood stove and it heats our entire house I don't have to buy propane to run the furnace.  With this terrible winter the price of propane has skyrocketed from $1.69 to $4.99 a gallon.  They are also setting a max fill of only 150 gallons.  $748.50 for 150 gallons should be criminal.  You can fill your entire tank for that much in a normal year!  Like I said, I'm grateful as all get out.

I have already been browsing the garden catalogs.  I plan on starting some of my plants even earlier this year.  Like my peppers.  Last year I had such a great harvest but it was so late in the year I didn't get the full benefits of them.

We have a ton of stuff to get done in the next few months.  Once this sickness passes it will be time to get it started.  Spring will be here before you know it!

With the extra cold temps I decided to bring in more than normal wood supply for the week.

Something else to add to the list....finish off the brick!

That is it for now.  Haven't worked on the book much.  I really need to commit or shelf it for now.

I've just been so tired it's hard to write.  Like you couldn't tell.  Not much blogging going on either!

I'll try harder,

Later

Bushman