It’s time to throw out the Christmas tree and pick up the tree limbs on the ground from the latest early winter storm as I do battle with the firewood pile that has just been delivered …my back hurts. A cold wind is swirling down my driveway as a blustery late afternoon in January fades to night. I’m wearing a coat that has holes in the pockets, is covered with stains and has long been forbidden to be used any place off of our property…but it still fits and every year I try to throw it out but I have chores to do and it is perfect for all the dirty jobs that I love .

I have just finished moving some firewood from a big pile in the backyard to a smaller pile on the porch…a pile that is covered and easier to reach at 2 am when it is 12 degrees outside and I’m stumbling around half asleep trying to keep the temperature in my drafty 200 year old house above a comfortable 55 degrees…. but now I am putting the ladder away after spending a couple of hours pulling a mixture of wet cold, mushy leaves from my gutters. I end my outside day by checking JoAnn’s car for any new damage done by mice eating at the cars wiring. And as the sunlight begins to fade I have one last chore that gives me pause to think of others who have come and gone in my life while raising the American flag that I had lowered the other day as my part of to tribute to a recently deceased Rhode Island governor .

All of these, and there are many more, are part of my daily routine. It’s a routine that I still enjoy. I have heard from many well meaning friends and relatives suggesting that maybe I should consider moving to a condo or an apartment so I don’t have to go thru the daily drudgery of doing such tasks as climbing on the roof for storm blown debris, shoveling the sidewalk so that the neighborhood kids can get to school without having to walk in the street or emptying the occasional mouse traps ( a particularly fun activity)

Once these chores become a “job” or worse something that I can’t do I will begin thinking of a life on the porch of my condo. A “condo life “ that will consist of me sitting having not moved since doing my biggest task of the day…making morning coffee. A “condo day” that has me watching somebody cutting the grass the “wrong way” or grumbling to myself as my neighbor parks his car too close to mine and I notice a new box of his obnoxious smelling cigars peak out of the top of his shopping bag as he waves to me from the parking lot. He is on his way up to share the aroma of his cigars and some of his foul tasting homemade moonshine as I listen his daily rant about how the world was better when we were both young……. Sigh!!!!!!

The future can wait!

Meanwhile I’ll put on my coat and get some more wood for the stove while I still have can.