Reflections on the Eighth Week of Fall – Whack-Crack 

    With morning temperatures in the twenties twice this week, garden work slowed giving Spence time to cut firewood for the winter of 2017-2018. “I need to keep my baby Janet warm,” he said. Saturday afternoon, in yellow waders, a tattered red sweatshirt, and a red baseball cap, he loaded his tools in the tractor bucket and rode to the maple with three trunks that had fallen across Deer Creek.

    The rumble of the tractor motor diminished, and I bit my fingernails. Would he blow up his shoulder again?

    Last November, pains had shot through his left shoulder, arm, and wrist. He applied Ben Gay, slept with a blanket bunched under the shoulder, and swallowed my arthritis-acetaminophen pills. Like a knucklehead, he endured the pain for two months before checking with Dr. Moore, his general practitioner.

    She diagnosed a muscle strain or bruise and prescribed a muscle relaxer. That didn't help. The pain was worst at night making it hard for Spence to sleep. On a second visit, Dr. Moore said the symptoms sounded like a torn rotator cup and ordered an MRI.

    In March Spence checked with Dr. Anderson, an orthopedist. After studying the MRI results, he said Spence definitely had a torn rotator cup. Surgery was possible but not recommended.

    Recalling the pain and agony stories of a friend who'd undergone that surgery, Spence agreed.

The orthopedist gave Spence a cortisone shot and told him to come back any time he needed another shot.

    Spence had one question. “Can I still split wood?”

    “If you don't want to be in pain,” Dr. Anderson said, “buy a wood splitter.”

    He probably wasn't recommending a hand tool.

    This September, Spence ordered a light weight Fiskars X27 Super SplittingAxe. When the Amazon shipping carton arrived, he pulled the axe out, reverently unsnapped the blade cover, and held the axe toward me. “Look, it has wings.”

    I didn't see any wings. “Where?”

    He fingered the axe head where it flared into a slight wedge. “Wings turn an axe into a splitting axe. Wood splits with one stroke.”

    Saturday morning, he invited me to the end of the south field. Beside the wood pallet, maple logs lay scattered across the grass. He balanced a log on end, raised his axe, swung, and whack-crack, the log split in two. Amazing. He repeated the balance, whack-crack miracle again and again until his Tom-Sawyer act got me.

    “Let me try,” I said reaching for the axe.

    He stacked the cut logs on the pallet.

    I set a six inch diameter log on end, swung, and whack-crack–the log split. No jarring or shoulder pain. A miracle. I swung three times and split three logs. I should have stopped then.

    On successive tries, logs wobbled. I missed my target, and the blade dug into sod releasing a moist-soil fragrance. I also bounced the axe off some dense maple logs and jarred my shoulders. After no success with particularity hard maple log, I handed the axe to Spence.

    He swung at the stubborn log.

    The splitting axe stuck in the dense wood.

    He hammered in a wedge to free the axe. The wedge stuck too.

    I lost count somewhere around fifty of how many hammer strokes it took to free the axe then the wedge, and finally split the log. I wasn't disappointed I hadn't split that gnarled log with one stroke but wondered about the shoulder Spence had blown up.

    Later, after a lunch break, Spence drove the tractor with his tools in the bucket to the maple with three trunks that had fallen across Deer Creek.

    Fingernails bitten short, I scuffed dry leaves and followed with my camera.

    He splashed across the creek, revved his chain saw, and cut through maple branches. Saw dust flew, and aroma of maple reached me on the other bank.

    He tossed thin branches into a brush pile and threw cut logs to the island. When he had enough cut off, he climbed down the bank into the creek and pulled the ten foot maple branch onto the island. He cut more logs. Panting, he stacked the logs on a fallen maple trunk, ducked under, transferred the logs to the next trunk, stepped over, and carried the logs to the tractor bucket.

    “Why don't you stop for a water break?” I didn't want him to aggravate his rotator cup. “You could use a rest.”

    “I am resting,” he said. “Carrying logs is resting from the heavy work.”

    Had he blown up his shoulder again?

    “It aches,” he said Sunday morning. “But it always aches.”