My hands are beat up. I guess that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but the combination of old scars and new wounds (fine, they’re more like boo-boos, but whatever) represent the bulk of the physical hardship of living out here.
The quarter-sized scar on the back of my right wrist is courtesy of the wood stove, as is the small scab on the back of my right thumb. Next to the burn on my thumb are two little marks where large splinters were pulled out. The back of my left thumb knuckle got skinned the other day while cleaning the chimney. And my left middle finger got nailed grabbing wood out of the shed.
One of the apple trees
There are also the pre-cabin scars like the one on my index finger from where the first knife I owned folded up on me while I was up in the apple tree at my parent’s old house. Plus the one on my right palm that ended with seven stitches after jamming my hand into a pile of broken glass at the bar during work.
There’s no doubt about it, my right hand takes the brunt of my abuse. I just read “The Old Man and The Sea” and that had a similar theme, but the old man thought his left hand was weak and stupid. He relied on his right hand and never had any doubts about its usefulness. I don’t think my left hand is useless, and in fact I have to admit that if I was going to lose a finger, I would prefer that it came from my right hand. I need all the fingers on my left hand to play guitar.
One nice thing about the mildness of this winter, so far anyway, is that my feet haven’t been as frost bitten as I thought they would be. I developed frost bite on my feet years ago. Cramming my feet into ill-fitting and stiff down hill ski boots and skiing over one hundred days per year pretty much sealed my fate. I should have chosen boots that were comfortable, but I wanted racing boots even though I sucked at racing and was only on the team to get the free skiing. The tables have turned now, and since I no longer get free skiing, I no longer get frostbite. Truth is, I’d rather hit the slopes and deal with the frostbite.
Do you need me to get you a pair of gloves for your Cabin Life? Call it a late Chanukah present!
I do wear gloves!
Good idea Mark! Jus, I don’t remember the knife/apple tree incident. Is this one of those things you didn’t tell me??? – Mom
Really enjoyed reading your blog! It cracked me up – and made me shiver – when you said it has been a mild winter. It sounds pretty ding dang cold to me, but I’m in the PNW where it may be soggy, but we have pretty mild winters in comparison. Glad to hear you got the woodstove packing down – getting up that often to toss logs on must have been hard. We heat exclusively with a woodstove and I always make sure we have a couple of good “night logs” to get us through to morning.
Looking forward to reading more about your cabin life.
Yeah, I definitely try to keep some of those big honkers in the shed for cold nights!
I can relate to the tore up hands. The last couple of weeks I’ve swung an axe and cleared deadfalls from the trail exclusively. I work for a living using my hands and thought they were pretty tough but the axe has found ways to put blisters where I’ve never had them before. I had the last two days off and I’m actually looking forward to going back to “real” work just to give my arms and hands a chance to recover. Love your blog about the cabin life. Keep up the stories.
Hi Justin,
I edit the online community blog Adirondack Alamanack – could you contact me at adkalmanack@gmail.com?
Thanks,
John Warren