The COOP Photos: Chapter 1

Each chapter of Coop features a photograph taken by my friends John and Julie.  This is the photo at the head of Chapter One.  That’s our actual firewood, the stuff I was splitting in Chapter One.  The tall plants between the firewood and the oak trees are nettles.  Big old honkers.  The pigs love nettles.  I was worried that this photo wouldn’t make sense in the book since the chapter is set in the dead of winter, but maybe it works to see the firewood drying in the sun for the winter to come.  What you see there is a fraction of what we need to make it through the winter.  I never did catch up that year.  Had to buy some firewood.  A real humiliation.  I did a video essay about the experience for Wisconsin Public Television.  Hoping one day they’ll make it available as a Clodhopper Report on YouTube so we can have a look.

This year I am happy to report that the woodpile is five times this size and growing.