Preparing for Winter Before Summer Even Starts

Home Life

What kind of person would buy several cubic yards of firewood a week before summer begins? Just about every homeowner in Peja, Kosovo.

Huge piles of firewood deposited in front of people's homes were one of the first things that caught our eye when we came here. If you're the type of person who doesn't like winter, it's a scary sight. Winters so hard that people are preoccupied with it in late June? On the other hand, the piles of wood are also a thrilling sight, because they represent foresight, discipline, and planning, which are lacking elsewhere in society. It is common, for example, for people to think that they can skirt the consequences of other decisions such as ignoring utility bills, paying bribes, littering, and waiting for foreign investment to help their economy.

Nobody here suffers under the illusion that firewood can be bought at the last minute or with left-over money. Buying firewood after the family vacation could mean getting stuck with green (wet), expensive wood, and having too little money to afford it! The "principles of firewood" are going to be helpful in upcoming lectures and conversations on leadership!

On the advice of some wise friends, we're also filling our freezer with some produce that is in season right now. So far we've prepared several 4.5 pounds of spinach, 4.5 pounds of peaches, and 6.5 pounds of strawberries.

The firewood will be another blog entry sometime after next Tuesday... that's when we plan to take our landlord to the edge of town where the villagers bring their wagons full of wood. We'll bring the deal home with us where the villager will chop the wood and stack it on our balcony.