An Australian Lumberjack?

I've long understood that the role of the spouse who is not earning an income is to ensure that the family's income stretches as far as it can. So when I was asked if I wanted to go with some friends to cut firewood, I said "sure".  I mean my calf is currently injured so I can't run, and I am doing my annual "month off of Facebook", so what else do I have to do (other than the few dozen things on my to-do list that is...)?

So I applied for my forestry permit, which took a bit of mucking around since my Ontario driver's license number doesn't jive with their system.  No worries, I have enough years of breaking systems and I got something in that made sense!

Dave packed me a lunch (so reminiscent of home!), I put on my lumberjack clothes and Wanda and I were off. 

It was a great Spartan training experience and I was well pleased with the amount of wood I was able to haul.  That said, I will be speaking with the New South Wales Forestry Service about putting the good felled trees a bit closer to the road to make it easier to haul them out the next time we go.

I loved the steel toed boots. I felt very tough!!

Below, my hand is not actually on the log, for good reason.  That ant is HUGE and apparently bites HARD, much bigger than it looks.  We left the log that was full of these little fellas right where it was!!

This trunk also got left behind after we determined that this was a funnel web.  For those of you who have not been long term readers of the blog, or paying attention to the lessons on critters, funnel web spiders will mess you up.  You will die.  Some are apparently "less deadly than others".  I'm not sure how you end up less dead?  Maybe you still end up dead but the agony of getting there is more prolonged?  I don't want to know the answers to these questions.  Australia, you are a bit messed up!

A hard day's work, but we filled two trailers full of wood to warm our houses.  The last load that we bought cost $150, this cost me the $30 permit and a day's labour.