Strange and powerful day today … started out beautiful snow white and sunshine.

I brought in the chainsaw, sharpened it and went to work. Finished a tank of gas and went to reload it. Couldn’t get it going again … it started but shut down numerous times … then wouldn’t start. Not good! Read the manual, searched online … couldn’t get it fixed.

I spent some really pleasant time in the workshop. Months ago I found a couple of old hardwood boards in the barn attic and I carried one of them down. Today I simply spent some time with it … no agenda, no rush … just planing and sanding a beautiful peace of wood … revealing and discovering it. It was a first-of-a-kind experience in the workshop … and I look forward to many more like it … hopefully … a whole lifetime 🙂

I tried the chainsaw again … still no good.

Then at the end of the day I went to the summer kitchen to bring in some tea … and I found the large shelves filled with all of our winter preserves half collapsed. One side seemed to pull down on the whole thing … fortunately it was stopped by the large barrel of pickled cabbages. The shelves were loaded with ~150 jars of food.  Three bottles of tomato sauce is all we lost. It was divine intervention … we should have lost almost all of our winter preserves … and yet only 3 bottles broke. Amazing. We took down many of the jars … to the point we could get it pushed back into place. Learned a woodworking lesson (more on that in a future post) and gifted with another generous share of gratefulness.