April 30: A mostly sunny day, just cool enough so that I'm sitting in the sun close to my woodpile, with the latter helping to block a moderate to occasionally fresh southwesterly breeze. My woodpile is (as always) in two parallel rows. The rear (west) row, a trifle under six feet high and eleven full paces in length, consists of medium to big logs, some split and some unsplit, all 24-26 inches in length. With barely enough space for a person to squeeze between the two rows, the east row is half a dozen feet shorter and mostly of kindling and pieces less than three or four inches in diameter. I'm short of these thinner pieces, but a carpenter friend who rents the one-bedroom cottage will provide, gratis, enough short pieces of leftover lumber to bring this front row up to the height of the rear one. This is waste lumber that would otherwise be headed for a dumpster.

A big, even-topped stack of seasoned and seasoning firewood, enough to take one through all of the next winter, is a thing of beauty that few who do not heat with wood can fully appreciate. At the north end of the rear stack is the old fuel, some of it felled three years ago, that will be used up first. Also near this end are the logs from a standing dead pin oak and some new cherry, since cherry is best used up sooner rather than later, or else it begins to deteriorate.

The biggest catch of this year's chainsaw work was a black walnut tree just behind the barn that was 22 inches in diameter at the felling cut. A full cord of firewood from this one tree, and it split (all by hand) easier than I'd imagined. It leaned ever so slightly away from the barn, and I was able to direct the crown across a convex slope that made it easy to cut up. A few of the thickest logs had to be split in eighths, and most of the main trunk in sixths.

The other big tree was half of a double red oak, 19 inches in diameter, near the bottom of the wood road. Red oak is also a relatively easy splitter. Pin oak and maple are more difficult, and elm well-nigh impossible to split by hand until it is thoroughly seasoned.

I did things a little differently this year, working back and forth with the chainsaw, splitting maul / wedges, and wheelbarrow (for moving cut wood to where the pickup truck could reach) all during the same three-week period instead of doing the three jobs sequentially. This was partly because of some occasional problems restarting a warm saw, which necessitated letting the saw sit for an hour or two. But soon I found I preferred the new protocol to the old one, since it gave certain muscles a rest while engaging other ones.

When it came time to get the firewood trucked up to my back yard, I discovered that the man with the truck would be unavailable for a few weeks due to recent surgery. I continued with my reordering of heavy spring tasks by manuring, spading and raking my garden plot a couple of weeks earlier than usual. In fact, I'd finished with early spring planting before the truck and driver became available. Eleven loads in all, on three separate mornings over the course of eight days. Also renewed parts of the seven-foot garden fence, got a few small carpentry jobs done and cleaned up the front (screened) porch and dressed it for summer, with the chair and glider pillows, hanging plants, some artwork and other amenities.

So now I've been having some quiet time before I get started with more vegetable planting, replacing storm windows with screens, preparing the flower beds and shopping for and putting in the ground about 55 four-packs of annual flowers from the nursery. By the time I'm ready for that, I've always done enough hard labor for one season; with flowers, I opt for instant gratification.

Update May 19: I'm once again sitting in the sun on another sunny but cool and breezy day, this time in the shelter formed by a right angle in the line of the house. Mulching the onions, earlier today, was the final job, completing the almost end-to-end series of outdoor tasks of springtime – except for a couple of hours to replace the wooden-framed storm windows with screens, something that has been delayed due to a forecast of more cool, cloudy weather. It looks as if by Wednesday evening or Thursday, we'll need a fire in the wood furnace once again. The nearly six inches of much-needed rain that fell during the two weeks ending May 10 have restored ground water for the growing season and provided an earlier than usual harvest of wild golden oyster mushrooms. The dry, mostly sunny weather that has followed enabled me to complete my seed plantings in the vegetable garden and put in all the flower beds. A few of the 36 potatoes I planted are starting to peek through the ground. And the front row of my woodpile is now well on its way to achieving full height, thanks to my carpenter friend. Bouquets of the beautiful and fragrant wild dames rocket (Hesperis) fill vases on the front porch and elsewhere around the house.