Charlie, Boogie, Arthur and a friend named Tim are all sawing and splitting dry, long- standing, dead oak along the state road, just below our property line. Arthur is Charlie's brother (Boogie's cousin) and the leader of their carpentering-home-building crew. Tomorrow they begin work on a 1200 home project out of the county, toward Washington; today they saw, split, load, haul and stack immediately-burnable hard wood for Charlie and me. One pickup load has already been stacked in front of the main cabin door. I am burning some of it as I write.

Cold outside, warm in the cabin. Both wood stoves are burning furiously. The bedroom wood stove is a hundred year old antique, acquired long ago at a forgotten summer estate auction. It is oval, heavy iron on the outside that cracks as it warms up. The old stove sits, free- standing, on a fire-retardant sheet at the foot of our bed, in the cramped, original wood frame portion of our cabin.

My friend, and extraordinary craftsman with anything metal and mechanical, Eldon Lewis resurrected the old stove by fashioning a new heavy-steel fire box to replace the original, long ago burned through. The stove is a marvel: once burning and the smoke sweeping through the fireplace insert and into and to of the narrow, tall chimney, it burns whatever wood offered it, without fuss or muss.

No special care in placement of the wood is needed. Put in wood for overnight and it will seem to simmer for hours, like a rich bean soup in the making. If rapid high heat is needed, the air door in the front-loading door is opened and the air stream blazes the wood, as the old cast iron pops and cracks merrily; then the handle on the air door is screwed shut and the pops and crackles intensify as the heat is trapped inside. As the heat from the iron radiates into the largely- uninsulated room, the temperature leaps up.

The second pickup load of newly-split oak has been backed into the drive and stacked; the total must be near a cord in volume, enough for over a month of cold weather burning. Charlie gets as much wood as I, according to our deal; but in addition I suspect there is a bit of joy in helping "The Old Mountain Man," as Arthur called me today. We have helped one or more of the young men and their families through the years, and as I get older, I sense a growing spirit of protectiveness toward me. Hey! You live in a mountain cabin in the forest, and you don't turn down dry oak delivered to your front stoop; you just don't.

While it is heartwarming and gratifying that Charlie, Boogie, and Arthur care enough to produce fire wood for us, no feeling can overcome the satisfaction of going into the forest, finding a still-solid, but long-dead hard wood, sawing it, splitting it and feel the pride as the stove wood stack grows.

Over the ridge, above the now-rushing creek behind the cabin, I have been working on the down locust. Uprooted from its shallow bed over the rock and boulder-filled mountain, it lays at an angle. This is an immediate problem: all of the weight of the tree is directed at the points (at the top and base) holding the main trunk slightly off the ground. I wedged sawed pieces of the limbs under the trunk and sawed at that point, relieving pressure on the trunk and avoiding a saw trapped in the cut as the trunk was sawed. I repeated this with each cut, creating the rounds for splitting. Large solid locust are the hardest-grained, hottest-burning hard woods in our part of the world, and therefore particularly prized as stove wood.

I don't work a tree as long as I once did; now an hour and a half usually brings me to the cabin wearing a perspiration-soaked shirt. I feel strong, with undiminished powers, when I create a significant pile of split wood; an emotional feeling, not one based in fact (for I am not as strong as twenty years ago), but the exhilaration is no less.

Jeanne does most of what I consider the hardest, most tedious work in the forest: she carries the split logs long distances to wood stacks near the cabin. The two leather carriers are scarred and patched-over from years of brutal treatment by gnarled and slivered wood splits. Jeanne's shoulders ache from the fifty pounds she carries in each hand. The worst, according to her testimony, is the damage to her legs caused by the scraping of the heavy carriers as she moves, up and down over rocks, boulders, tree trunks, limbs and branches. Fording streams on slippery water or snow-covered rocks is dangerous, but each year she builds stacks of wood splits. With our shared labor, we have always had enough wood to be warm in the bitterest blizzard, even before the recent generosity of the cousins Charlie, Boogie and Arthur. Wednesday
Christmas is coming. It is snowing, cold, and Jeanne is decorating the cabin with our collected Christmas goodies: a bright and cheery stained glass picture-framed candle, made by, and a gift from Jeanne's mother, hanging on its own nail, over a front window; a manger scene, done in dark and light contrasting woods, by Jeanne's brother, the cabinet maker; a round Christmas music box, purchased at a Christmas craft fair in Michigan, accompanied by Jeanne's Uncle Homer and his wife, both now dead; two small creches, one of simple clay, purchase in our favorite Spanish Mediterranean village, the other, wood painted deep burgundy, with metal prongs, representing the crowns of the wise men, we bought in Mexico. Balls and bangles hang everywhere, including the kitchen. Each item a treasure; each a reminder of the place of purchase and that the joy of Christmas is upon us. The freshly fallen snow completes the Christmas transformation of our homestead in Jewell Hollow.

Friday
BINGO! With the snap of a finger winter has fled. Early autumn has happily returned. The temperature is between 55 and 60 degrees (F). My life returns to the outdoors. The freedom to roam aimlessly without a heavy jacket; to wander the rim of the pond, picking up branches blown, or wet snow-broken down; breaking an obstruction to the free flow of water into the pond. Raking away debris in the spillway out of the pond, and watching it float away, gives me pleasure. Being unexpectedly in the warm fresh air and sunshine is exhilarating.

I discovered the balmy weather when I carried two Christmas plaques to the trees where they will hang to give Frink Christmas greetings to passersby on the state road. Then I wandered around with my dogs, grateful for this certain-to-be-short respite from the confinements of winter.

The antique wood stove in our bedroom must be treated very gingerly when the outside temperatures warm: if the air flow into the stove is not maintained, it will backup and flood the cabin with dense smoke. The cause of this, seldom experienced mess, is that the rising outside temperatures are not cold enough to draw the smoke up the tall chimney. When a smoke backup happens, it takes hours to clear the smoke from our room and days before the smell of wood smoke vanishes from our bed. Now, the air door in the front of the stove is opened wide. Hopefully, that will keep enough air moving over the fire bed that lingering smoke will rise as the fire exhausts itself.

Christmas cards arrive each day. Jeanne tapes them around the front windows, adding color and a sense of warmth to our slowly building takeoff to Christmas with the arrival of Geoff, Connie, Amy and Avery.

The Christmas tree situation is a little complex this year: we promised to wait until Geoff and family arrive before we go to a tree farm to choose and cut one; I fear that they will all be closed by the Saturday before Christmas. We'll have to find a very small one and put it on a card table in the front corner occupied by Granny's rocker, or Avery and the dogs will knock the ornaments off. Christmas doesn't have the same warmth, nor bring back the memories of Christmases past without a decorated tree. I'll push for an earlier--certain--tree acquisition, though it will deprive the kids of a cutting ceremony.

We were up early, Jeanne and I, ready to drive to Washington, DC. We turned on the local ABC-TV affiliate and the weatherman on the early morning show informed us that it was going to be a day of freezing rain; that information stopped us in our tracks. We can drive about in most foul weather conditions but a foot of snow and half an inch of ice will stop us. If we had braved it onto the mountain and over into Rappahannock County in the hopes of higher temperatures there, and made it all of the 90 miles to the DC line, there would be no assurance that we could get back to Jewell Hollow. We stayed in the cabin and watched the ice build up on our cars. By mid-day temperatures rose slightly and the rain washed the ice away. Tomorrow more of the same is predicted. We will stay in the hollow until the threat of freezing rain is gone.

Jeanne has finished the laborious job of wrapping individual gifts for our family and friends; then she boxed them, secured the boxes with duct tape, weighed and measures each one and called UPS to come and get them. UPS will, in fact, come all the way up the narrow state road and gather our packages, saving us the handling and drive to the post office in the village. The hollow is getting increasingly citified: three families living here full-time, at least two new residences in the early stages of construction and UPS coming to our door. I told my friend Sec- Flack this morning that Jewell Hollow is getting so suburban-like that we might have to look for another hollow. CHRISTMAS DAY
I awoke this morning feeling fine and looking forward to our grandchildren opening their gifts. Christmas Eve day was a wipeout, caused by a serious stomach flue grabbing my by the nape of the neck and shaking everything out of my digestive system.

Geoff and Connie, Amy and little Avery arrived on the day before Christmas Eve. With the two children, four and two, constant motion and happy noise have filled the cabin since their arrival. For Virginia, the temperatures are very cold, seldom rising above 20 degrees over the last week. That keeps us together in the little cabin. Despite the closeness of the quarters the children have been obedient and good-natured.

The state road and the rocky land about us are covered with frozen, crusty sleet. Walking anywhere is a challenge. When Geoff takes his two tykes out for an airing, he carries Avery and firmly hold the hand of Amy.

The 23 lb. turkey is roasting outdoors in the Weber grill. I announced to the family that this meal will be the swansong of the 11 year old cooker; the scrapers on the kettle bottom, which clean it of debris and control the airflow, have folded up and failed. Rather than going back to cooking on the flat rock beside the summerhouse (no turkey roasting there), I will scout the area for a new Weber. The Farm Bureau store in the village had one on sale in the autumn, now probably gone. When spring finally arrives, in what projects to be the longest winter in Virginia history, I shall replace the Weber, no matter the price. Summer evenings charcoaling a meal as the glow of sun falls behind the foothill ridges to our West, are priceless.

According to the calendar, winter has just begun its long, slow crawl to spring, but the wood stoves have been blazing for weeks. I have tired of the confinement already. Half the cord of oak that Charlie, Boogie and Arthur split and stacked on our drive wall has been consumed and winter is only three days old.

Monday and Tuesday, prior to Christmas, the sleet and ice had us trapped in the hollow; Jeanne made good use of the time. Each year she bakes exotic cookies, truffles and twists of chocolate (dark and white), dates and nuts, all creative and delicious.

Jeanne bakes for us, her family, but part of the joy of her Christmas is piling her baked goods on large trays and delivering them to our physician and Duda and Attila's vet. This year I played cookie Santa, for Jeanne had to work in the District three straight days after our early week, ice- enforced hollow stay. Jeanne's Christmas baked goods have become a part of the holiday for the recipients. The vet's wife walked toward me with a big smile, exclaiming: "We have been waiting for those...", as I made that delivery.

Winter deer killing goes on near-endlessly in Jewell Hollow, even on Christmas morn: this morning, early, a very large caliber rifle shot sounded loudly near the cabin.

Inexplicably, UPS failed to find us in Jewell Hollow for two days after the promised pickup date of our Christmas packages going to family and friends. We called and the supervisors were solicitous but the large, dark brown van with the noisy gasoline engine didn't arrive. We waited, giving up scheduled errands, not wanting to miss the man we call Buster Brown. On the third day he arrived, without a clue as to why he had not been scheduled to the hollow earlier. No matter: because of their delay, they sent our packages next day air delivery, even the one going to Hawaii. Buster Brown gave me tracing numbers of each package; I traced. They all got to their destinations on time, except the one to Montana was delayed until Christmas Eve. This year, gifts from our travels to Holland and mine to China were liberally sprinkled about to those, by kinship or friendship, deemed worthy. Giving is the essence of the Christmas spirit, in Jewell Hollow, as elsewhere.

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