With winter preparations already underway here (I don't want to get caught flatfooted as happened last year when we were hit with three feet of snow in the first week of November), I was reminded of a story that Henry David Thoreau related in his journal on December 15th, 1859:
Philosophy is a Greek word by good rights, and it stands almost for a Greek thing. Yet some rumor of it has reached the commonest mind. M. Miles, who came to collect his wood-bill today, said, when I objected to the small size of his wood, that it was necessary to split wood fine in order to cure it well, that he had found that wood that was more than four inches in diameter would not dry, and moreover a good deal depended on the manner in which it was corded up in the woods. He piled his high and tightly. If this were not well done the stakes would spread and the wood lie loosely, and so the rain and snow find their way into it. And he added, "I have handled a good deal of wood, and I think that I understand the philosophy of it."
During my youth growing up in Maine, I too handled a good deal of wood, for we mostly heated our house by means of two woodstoves and I was responsible for hand-splitting the 6-8 cords of firewood we burned every winter. Based on my experience, I concur with Thoreau's neighbor about splitting the wood fine. The old-timers called this "biscuit wood" because the finely-split wood burned hot in the cookstove, thus enabling one to bake biscuits at 500+˚F. (Or at least such was my understanding - my Dutch mother didn't make American-style biscuits!)
Come to think of it, don't most of the practical aspects of life have an associated philosophy? There is beautiful wisdom to be gained and passed on about chopping firewood, baking bread, canning, knitting, gardening, carpentry, fishing, sailing, and countless other skills and crafts. Perhaps these prosaic forms of philosophy are more directly meaningful in life than the endless speculating and professing that goes on in academic settings...
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)