Mag plays Jenga

Today we prepared for a visit from some gardening help, people who actually own chainsaws. A few weeks ago we'd taken down 30 or 40 birch saplings and elderberry, and dragged them out of our wooded area up into our paddock/backyard area.

We want to do as much as we can with loppers and J's jig saw so that the profis can handle the bigger stuff.

We dragged the saplings up the hill to the tack room/shed where J had his jig saw set up, and I started sorting the wood by diameter. If it was small enough that I could use loppers, I put it in a tidy stack against the tack room wall. If it was big, I stacked it where J could reach, and replenished as necessary as he made kindling/small burnable wood into pieces that will fit in our tiny wood stove, about 10 inches each. J made a spot in my tack room/work shed for the wood and it's especially tidy, as a German woodpile would be.

This is the kind of work that is fun for my man, cuz he has the firewood bug, like all our neighbors who strive to save money on fuel and produce heat from what nature provides. It is not fun for me, cuz I grew up with my dad pulling the truck over on the side of the highway in South Park and we'd all load up the tree that he noticed had fallen down. But we'd get through Winters on only wood stove heating, so it was fun work for my dad too.

Mag, like my dad and J, thinks it's the best kind of work. He would not get out of our way today. He stood directly in the middle of the sorting area, with branches all around him, and watched J use the jig saw. I'd toss thinner branches under his head until he was so close I was tossing them over his head and hitting him, but he didn't mind.

At one point he was standing in a mass of wispy branches and larger saplings, 20 feet long, and he got a 4 inch diameter one caught between his front pasterns.

I wondered what would happen, as he tried to force one leg out, but it only tightened the pressure on the other leg, as he was trapped.

I watched him think it out, "Well, that didn't work" and then he tried re-positioning his other leg, and freed himself from the trap. I was so proud. That is some advanced stuff for a 6 year old. At least he knows where his front legs are!

I was mindful of his dangerous hind legs as I picked up the branches he was standing in the midst of and stacked them.

If I'd had a camera I could have shown you, but it was as if my horse was placing himself in the middle of an ever-growing woodpile, and was reluctant to leave, cuz he thought it was a game.

As I stacked them carefully against the tack room, he would breathe on my shoulder, and touch me gently with his nose on my back. I said, "Yah, I showered and you noticed, I smell better!" But I couldn't help but feel another connection with him, as he reached out to be with me physically during this project.

Every so often J would get up off his knee cushion to stretch his back and he'd kiss Mag on the forehead, "Na, Mag?" 

Then Mag found a tasty beech branch under all the  nasty elderberry and pulled it out with his teeth, messing up my proper pile.

He waved the thing around like a toy and then got to work eating it. Adorable.

J said, "You gotta put the edible ones on the top of the pile so he doesn't Jenga the whole thing down!" I said, "I'm working on it!"

When we were almost done, I had to get the last bits up off the ground under his  hooves and so I needed him to leave, with the donkey. But clapping my hands did not do it, he was part of this work project and did not want to let it go.

J handed me a lunge whip and I waved it, finally getting them out of the paddock. I handed J back the lunge whip and said, "Do not cut this up."He said, "Why not, you have 2 more!" Yes, I have a lotta lunge whips (cuz I lunge at various locations).

Mag, expelled, forlorn, stood as close as he could to us at the paddock gate, even nickering at me, "I'm here!" and I said, "I see you Mag."

How much fun can wood cutting/stacking be? Ask the horse: )