Do NOT start tunneling until you've stacked all your wood for winter
Please learn from my painful village mistakes
I was helping my neighbor build a Mad Max BRICS-mobile when a long-suppressed memory emerged from the cobwebs of my subconscious.
“I’m a blogger,” I said aloud, astonished and horrified.
“What’s a blogger?” my neighbor asked. “Nevermind. Come here and hold this while I weld.”
“Do I get any eye protection?” I asked him as he pulled his welder’s helmet over his face.
“Yeah. Close your eyes.”
We were a great team. With the hot rod almost halfway complete, my neighbor decided on a test ride through the village—he in the driver’s compartment, and me dangling from a metal rod in the barely constructed cargo bed.
It’s always safety first in the village.
We reached speeds of several kilometers an hour, which was quite thrilling for a wheelbarrow driver like myself.
But returning to my neighbor’s piercing question, “What is a blogger?”—we now have an authoritative answer from none other than Russia’s friendliest banker, Herman Gref:
“It’s just awful to me, all these bloggers who haven’t achieved anything in life. Listen, if a person has achieved something in life, will he become a blogger? He doesn’t have time for that. And losers who can’t do anything else except chat, they become bloggers,” [Gref said while speaking at a SberUniversity conference at the end of October]
Brutal.
I mean, he has a point. Gref is preparing to launch the world’s first space bank (?) …
… Meanwhile, your Novgorod village correspondent is feverishly chopping and stacking wood, which brings me to the main point of this informative internet article.
If you live in a Novgorod village, you need to chop all your wood and stack it by August at the latest.
Also, do not buy wet wood, even at a steep discount, if you intend to burn it in the near future.
If you do not follow these instructions you will be cold and sad.
Back in June when I was tunneling underneath Ekaterina’s garden, I remember chuckling to myself as I watched my neighbors diligently tend to their wood piles.
Chopping wood—in summer? What is this foolishness? I would think to myself as I cheerfully excavated my secret subterranean passageway, which flooded two weeks later.
If you learn nothing else from this underachiever’s blog, let it be this: Under no circumstances should you attempt to dig a tunnel before sorting out your wood situation.
I AM STILL CHOPPING WOOD. IT’S COLD. EVERYONE IS LAUGHING AT ME.
I have also been trekking deeper and deeper into the forest in search of lost village civilizations. I will be compiling a full report on my findings soon.
I wish you a very pleasant Saturday.
Until next time,
Riley
Gref is jealous that he lacks your charm, talent and good looks.
All that's left for him is to count his space shekels. You, on the other hand, have a village, a friend who welds Bricmobiles, a dog, a woodpile and a flooded tunnel.
I would say that you have much the better situation.
Riley, when in Rome, do as the Romans do! Your posts always make me smile, so provide a valuable service to readers. Never stop blogging!