Coffee, Walking, Thinking…
Yesterday I met the lady at the white home. Boza and I were following her trail as she dragged her sled into the woods, back and forth, from home. We wanted to see what she was doing! We talked to her for a minute, when we found her on her way back from the woods. She had a sled full of wood. She gathers, cuts and splits all her own wood and she is over 80 years old…
She has plenty of wood for the winter and most likely for the next five winters in stock at home, but as I see and understand, gathering wood is kinda (a) full time job in the village. This amazing lady, walks at least five times a day, when it snows, to gather her wood from the leftovers of the illegal tree cutting by guys with big trucks, big chainsaws and big energy. These guys only want the main trunk of the tree and they do only cut dead trees. (Seasoned wood is the only wood for a fireplace.) Thus, I see no harm in what they do, but it is illegal, for it is a federal forest…
The white house lady gathers the scraps and puts them to use. I have done the same all summer and that is the best way to do it. She taught me to now look at what the guys are doing cutting trees and I am making plans to drag wood out of the forest myself now that I see the reasoning behind it…
When Sveta comes, her and I will gather some wood she found near the Fish Village. You can never have enough wood piled up to split for the winter. I watch the locals and understand the need to build a wood shed, big enough to hold five years worth of wood. Another project that I need to do. I need to finish the chicken coop, build a new outhouse and a work shed. Plus finish the main house and now I need to build a wood shed or actually a lean to for storing wood under…
Tough lady and I watch and learn from her…
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As Boza and I walked along yesterday, we scared up a fox. He decided to take a siesta and it happened to be right on top of a huge ant mound. In the summer this is a mound to stay away from, but right now, I guess it makes a good sleeping spot for a fox. The fox squealed and ran away after we almost stumbled upon it. Scared us all… 😉
Boza told me by his look, that foxes are not smart as we think they are and I took a picture and we left…
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The wind was whipping at 15 meters per second, which is about 33 mph. That makes for some serious cold, as the wind is what sucks the heat out of things. It snows constantly, but it also blows icy windy and the snow just drifts away to some other part of the world. We are on the highest spot around and I see now that all the snow blows off our hill and floats down to the valley. The snow in the valley is much deeper. We are lucky up high here…
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This morning I watched as Vova drove in from his girlfriend who lives in another village. He came in the back way to the village, Boza and I just watched as he staggered to his door and soon he was fast asleep. His girlfriend from the summer is gone out of the picture, but he has a gal that loves him, but you can tell he does not love her. But she is happy with him and he goes about once a week to see her. Women here in Russia out number men by a bunch and a good man is hard to come by. I guess she feels lucky to have him around?
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Time to go! Have a nice day and I will be back tomorrow…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia (WtR)