Big Hugs Man

Between the books and toys and the sing-along songs, it’s really easy to get stuck in kid world. Where trains can talk and the sun is singing. The day is filled with counting and colors and singing and of course....snuggles. Sometimes it's like living with Buddy the Elf, and after a weekend, my brain is usually cluttered with whatever happy little song is in rotation at the moment. So when I get to work and start humming, I don't exactly reek of testosterone.

But on New Year’s Day it was time to change all of that. It was time to get out and reconnect with my inner mountain man. I'd been cooped up for too long. I'd gotten soft.
 

So with the family safely tucked away at the ranch, napping or playing or otherwise just making fun of me, I set out to hunt and gather.

More gather I suppose. We’ve lived in our house for four years but only recently got around to having the fireplace inspected. Now we were fresh out of firewood. No problem.I gassed up my chainsaw, located my phone (I’m a little accident prone) and stepped out into the elements where I was all alone, foraging through the woods...behind my house.

I felt the survival instincts kicking in, I needed to keep my family warm. I mean yeah, we have heat and it was sunny and fifty outside, but I wasn't about to let that get in my way. There were no talking animals out here...only that bird....singing such a lovely song--dammit, I'm a man. A rugged beast of a man. Like Rocky when he went to train in Russia. Pretty much the same.
 

Getting down and dirty, I figured out the choke on that chainsaw and cut six or seven cords(?) of wood from a felled tree. But my wheelbarrow tire was flat so I had to haul them up the hill to the yard. No problem, I was like a caveman. A caveman who desperately needed chap stick. I lugged that wood to the backyard, yanked up my argyle socks, and then found my ax. But just as I went to take a swing I had to stop, as it finally dawned on me just exactly what song was stuck in my head...