kevin_standlee | Wood Delivery

As we are nearing the end of the two pallets of North Idaho Energy Logs, we contacted the place in Yerrington/Fallon (Renner Equipment) where we bought them and they were willing to deliver two more pallets. We made arrangements for delivery today and Lisa went down to Northern Nevada Cabinets to arrange for unloading. There was a snag: his forklift is broken. Next she tried D7 Industries (down an alleyway near our house). They said they'd be willing, but the alley is unpaved and they can't take their forklift over gravel because it tears up the tires. We were about to give up and tell them to take the wood to Fallon, where we'd have to make a pair of fifty mile round trips with the utility trailer to get the pallets. Lisa made one last try, walking down to Imerys Minerals (the diatomaceous earth processing plant down the street) and asking if they could help. This is, I think, a case of where being recognized as "the couple who walk by the plant every day around lunchtime" helps, as they agreed to help, as long as (again) they didn't have to drive on unpaved roads. This was okay, but it constrained the delivery to having to be right out front of our house, rather than around back on the back driveway, which as the asphalt is degraded counts as "unpaved" for this purpose.

This morning, the delivery driver called us when she was about ten minutes away and Lisa walked down to Imerys to give them the ten-minute warning. We had the delivery taken out front, the forklift driver trundled down to our house, and with only a small bit of shuffling of vehicles we had our wood.

While the wood was (sort of) on our property, having is immediately adjacent to the paved street was definitely non-optimal. To start with, it's a hazard. (We had to skip our garbage pickup for this week because the delivery spot was where we normally leave the bin for collection. This won't be a problem as we rarely fill the bin.) Next, there's a storm coming, and these pallets are not covered sufficiently to withstand rain or snow. So while I had to go back to work, Lisa started breaking down the pallets and moving energy logs.

First she carried the logs two at a time to refill the wood box. That used up all of one pallet and started another. The rest of the wood has to go to the garage. This involved filling the wheelbarrow with logs, rolling them down to the other end of the property, then stacking them on racks formed out of pallets from previous fire-log deliveries.

Although Lisa did nearly all of the log-rolling, once I managed to get clear of Day Jobbe, I came out and did a share of the lifting and toting. We now have a very full wood box and about 2/3 of a pallet stored in the garage as well. We hope this will be enough to last through March. We've been doing pretty good so far. Lisa discovering (and fixing) the leak in the living room where so much of our heat was venting out through the roof had helped a lot. Next year may be better, as we have a goal of trying to get a leaky window in the living room replaced.

We got the last of the logs put away just as the last of the twilight was fading. It was a long, cold, windy day, and much harder on Lisa. She worked very hard, and I assured her that if she wants to sleep all day tomorrow, nobody will blame her. She reminded me to take some aspirin before going to be, for while I didn't do nearly as much work as she did, lifting all that wood catches up to you eventually.