A new visitor to the wood pile.

I bet all us have had some unexpected visitors to our wood piles.

I know of people having snakes and mice. I've had stray cats, neighbor dogs and even a pair of baby skunk, but today tops them all.

I stopped at the wood lot after church to split some more ash to make room for my ash and elm that I'm going to bring over from my house.

Just as I was lining up my maul on another round I hear in rough English "I want to help"

Looking up I see a high school age boy walking up to me. Turns out he is a Spanish exchange student named Raul, who is staying with the neighbor.

He lives in an apartment in the middle of Madrid Spain and had never split or stacked wood.

After giving him a lesson in splitting , I let him try him hand with the maul. 2 swings later I switched him to the Fiskars.



Took him a while to get the hang of it, but he kept at it. He then helped stack what I had split earlier.

I told him that when he saw me out working he was welcome to tag along.

 

Fun! Exchange students are great.

 

It was funny...he was pretty excited when he finally split his first piece.

 

I want to help, well heck ya, here we go

 

Learning , teaching & help
is always appreciated

That blow was center cut,
give him lots & lots of practice

 

That's certainly unexpected, and very welcome.

 

Practice makes perfect....or at least good.

I had to slow his swing down. He kept wanting to lift the axe fast and would miss it badly. Taught him to bring it up slow, concentrate on where he wanted to hit, then drive it home.

It was nice to see he didn't give up...and kept learning from what I said.

I just unloaded the truck and he came back over to help stack the rounds too.

 

There's something you don't hear too often !!!

You made a friend for life, schlot! Bet you have more in common than you ever thought possible.

 

"Ci, Senor' "......................

 

Square up the stance a bit,protect the toes

 

He likes Mexican food?

 

He'll remember that for the rest of his life.

 

My Dearest Madre,

Today in America, I thought I would have some time to myself. Much to my surprise, I could hear someone struggling with their breathing with loud heavy gasps. Being concerned and wanting to make a good impression, I looked into the adjoining yard and saw this really old looking guy trying to split some wood!
I ran over and asked him to please take a break, but as you know my English is a bit hard to understand with my accent and all.
Well, the next thing you know, he handed me a splitting maul and told me to get to work. I pretended that it was difficult and didn't know how but he was very demanding and kept yelling out advice the whole while I was there. He even gave me a second splitting maul to use! I thought I'd never get out of there; all he did was kept hauling more pieces that needed to be split. I finally finished and thought I would leave but he grabbed ahold of me and said there is more to do and then made me stack everything. He just sat there supervising and drinking Mt. Dew. When the last piece was finally stacked and he says to me "You can come back anytime".

I am going to talk to my school advisor and try to see if I can get transferred to a warmer state!

Your loving (and very sore) son

Raul.

 

I will not comment on any similarity this has with said interaction...except for the fact there was Mt. Dew involved.

 

You're a good man!

 

really well for next few days as he worked his shoulder and stomach in a different way! schlot I hope you offered the young man a Mt dew and tylenol!