We've enjoyed it the entire 10 years we've lived here. I'm usually the fire builder. I've learned a great deal about building fires, building fires that stay burning, rekindling waning fires, the properties of different kinds of wood.

To give you an idea of how intensive my education has been, we are in our sixth winter of using the wood stove as our main source of heat. This is our second winter of having a timed thermostat that kicks on for one hour each morning that the house temperature is below 65° at the set time. (Maybe we're getting a little soft.)

For the most part, this heat has been the product of free wood. We bought a pickup truckload and a half of scraps from a firewood processing plant two years ago when an elderly friend staying with us needed the house warmer than our customary 65°. And several years we spent $20 for a permit to collect dead and down on certain U.S. Forest Service land. That is, we do have a great deal of sweat equity in our firewood.

This last year, our firewood has all been collected from people's yards—four cords of it! Consequently, we've not been picky about the variety of wood. My least favorite is the diseased Mondale pines, because the smoke smells so bad. But it burns fast and hot. Pinion smells better but does not burn as hot. Juniper smells the best. Manzanita burns the hottest. We have quite a bit of mimosa, too. It's fine when well-dried and split. Rarely do we have oak because it is protected here; even standing dead oak cannot be collected on public land. A neighbor gifted us four logs.

Sticks

This is our first really good year for "sticks." While my ideal definition is 1" or so diameter  and 14-18" long, we've ranged far afield from that. Previously, my partner in wood gathering eschewed these, but has finally—our 10th year—realized their excellence for getting a fire going quickly and restarting a dying fire.

In the cord I stacked myself, I laid a row of split wood, then a layer of sticks. Repeat. When I met with resistance, I said, "It takes all kinds, and all sizes, to make the best fires."

We had enough sticks this year to build a giant packrat midden, and that is what it looked like before I built a separate crib for them out of wooden pallets.

We also were gifted with the opportunity to collect from someone's yard a great deal of old and splintering lattice. This is the most excellent kindling and can often be lighted directly. I discovered how much "appreciation" for "all kinds" my partner had finally accepted when I recently pulled back the tarp from the stick crib to see it had been refilled with not only sticks, but also handfuls of lattice strips—which I prefer to keep only for starting the fire, not for feeding to keep one going.

Happy

I am a happy fire tender now that I no longer have to go to the 1) split pine rack, 2) the juniper rack, and 3) the stick pile to gather fuel for the ideal fire. The ideal fire is made up of all kinds and all sizes of wood. The thinner it is, the faster it burns. The thicker it is the longer it burns.

Logs, or sticks, thick or thin, do not burn well alone. You need a group. Or at least two to do well. A fire is like a neighborhood or a community or town. Variety, not sameness, works the best.

To paraphrase John Donne:

No log is a fire, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the conflagration, A part of the heat. If a stick rolls off the the grate, The flame is the less…

When the no-see'ums were plowing my scalp to harvest survival for their posterity, I sought out the strongest bug-off compound I could find in my local drug store. A couple of 20-30-ish guys behind me, wearing 'Why haven't you brought me another beer?' T-shirts, searched the shelves for something less damning, any product without warnings of 'may cause testicular tumors or death.' I revealed rather bluntly, to myself as well as to them, that at 63, I was probably too old to die from insect repellent poisons.

Poison is a big issue, whether on the skin, ingested, or merely out there–in the air. But most poisons, including radiation from X-rays and other sources, are cumulative. One little shot, as the USDA and the FDA constantly insist, 'ain't gonna hurt you much.' It's the long-term exposure to asbestos or lead or aluminum or other heavy metals or GMO corn that kill you.

But I've digressed. I fingered the wound to see how much it still hurt…how sore are the edges of the gash. But the inflamed ridges are not the center of the problem.

The real loss in aging gracefully is not that you aren't going to die from sweeping up a packrat's nest without wearing a face mask, or that you don't wash your hands between filling your bird feeders and having breakfast.

No.

• The loss is you will not likely become fluent in another language and especially not in both Spanish and ASL.
• You will not go on an archaeological dig in the Holy Land or even in Puebloan America.
• You will never write down all the wonderful trips you've taken, things you've seen and what you've experienced with your life mate.
• You won't remember what you ordered at your favorite restaurant or whether you tried the spinach-kale version of it and liked it.

For me, possibly worst of all, is not remembering the names of the plants in my own yard. As I walk the streets and trails, I cannot help but mouth the names of what I see: Arizona juniper, Palmer's penstemon, blue flax, golden crownbeard, silverleaf nightshade (an invasive I should pull, but they're thorny and I have no gloves today).

I've expressed to people close to me that knowing flora and fauna names is like having friends all along the path. I tell the names to anyone brave enough to walk with me. Saying their names in my mind not only refreshes my memory but is a friendly Hello to these pals of mine, these buds on an journey we don't understand on planet Earth. Do I know why I am here any more than they do?

If I'm fortunate enough to be leading visitors on a path, I tell them everything I know about said plant: healing properties, signs of when the moon is ripe for amazing sex, anything that is real and true or amusing or humbling or funny that makes these plant friends.

This is what I love about my nature-friends. I'm introducing you, hoping you will love them, too.

• good looking
• sexy even
• smart, possibly the
• life of the party

Do we make it? Do we acknowledge it? Do others tell us about it—give us the feedback, possibly for a stretch of 40 years—that we indeed SIZZLE?

aaa

We're just back from celebrating Dad's 95th birthday. Actually, it was less of a celebration than a scolding. "Dad, you have to have more help in here during the week."

"No! I don't want to be invaded!"

"Then you'll have to go to an assisted living facility."

"No, I'm not leaving my house and I'm not allowing anyone to invade my privacy."

"Then you'll have to sign up for Life Alert, and promise to wear the necklace at all times."

"OK."

It was depressing. Dad couldn't explain why he carries a half pound of keys in his pocket every day, even though he leaves the house for only an hour one day a week, and needs only two keys to lock up and get back in (none for the car…finally stopped threatening every driver and pedestrian in his part of Los Angeles County!).

He was stupefied and a bit perturbed by finding a beer in his fridge, even though three adult children arrived with food and drink for a birthday luncheon. "Where did this beer come from? I didn't put a beer in the fridge!"

Though it's difficult to see a parent or parent-in-law, or any friend or neighbor near, or over, 90 lose their faculties—they may have been a famous actor, a war hero, a renowned author, an award-winning artist—and now they are the pitiful, shuffling refuse of their former glorious selves.

Could it be the worst part of this all is that they know it? aaa

I think about when I'll be in the same boat, except I have no children to try to save me from myself.

aaa

Do we all wither—fizzle—after a lifetime of aspiring to SIZZLE?

Other than staying healthy, I have no options that I know of. But today, it is not about me. It's about all my 90-103 year old friends and family…

Reality is setting in. (Is 'reality' something we say after a certain age?)

aaa

aaa