My old man owns a cottage.

It´s situated in the middle of, sorry, in the end of nowhere. It´s surrounded by giant pine
trees, spruces, birches, snakes, mooses, foxes and a few other cottages containing other
old men trying their best to cope up with nature.

I use that cottage too with his permission and I love spending a few days there, away from
the city, away from the computers, away from it all.

That cottage isn´t exactly cut off from civilization- it´s equipped with running water and
electricity, a radio, a TV, a satellite reciever and a micro wave oven, etc. etc.

At times, it´s wonderful staying there. Outdoors mostly. It´s situated on an island, there´s
a twenty minutes walk to the shore. There´s also a small lake only five minutes from the
house.

But with a place like that comes plenty of work, outdoors and indoors.

The Old Man has a bright head and a strong body. He competed in shot put athletics when
he was younger and carries about the same width as height. Quite different from the Webmeyster who is pretty tall but not especially wide with a semi-bright head.

The Webmeyster is rather handy but sometimes a little lazy.

My Old Man is efficient and stubborn.

He is not very handy though….

Throughout the years several big trees have been cut down at that place.

All rests of them had been gathered in big lumps reaching a remarkable volume, thirty meters in length with five meters in width and a little more than a man´s length high (remember that the Old Man is hardly a man´s length tall).

I never liked those big lumps. What´s he waiting for- everything to turn into a big compost
maybe? Only thing is that for big chopped down trees it´s going to take about 400 years or so.

So I suggested that we should do something about it. Burning it right on the very spot
was out of the question, too dangerous because it was right among several other trees yet standing up.

During the years a couple of trees had also started growing right through the lump…

Moving it all should have been too much work, a truck couldn´t come anywhere near.

Splintering it at first and then burning it up could have been possible but there was no
facilities for that.

-If only we had an empty barrel, oil barrel or so then we should have been able to burn it in that one, said my old man.

But for a handy guy like me getting an oil barrel is like a piece of a cake.
So away I go.

It´s going to take a couple of days to get rid of all that shit and a little comfortable like I
am I suggest that the old man gets started while I´m away for a couple of weeks.

However, when I got back there after a couple of weeks I find that lousy barrel in exactly
the same place and position as where I left it.

And the Old Man doesn´t seem to notice anything. So believe it or not, I have to deal with
that whole lump myself.

It´s smoking, first of old rests of thick oil, then with trees, rotten treeparts, bugs, rubbish
and other things that have been thrown in that stack of logs.

Aluminium plates for instance, and they don´t burn easily.

After a number of days It´s finally getting me somewhere and I start to see the end of the line.

But at the bottom of the stack I run into something cylindrical-shaped made in rather tough steel.

AN OLD OIL BARREL!

You pulled me a leg again, old man.