Each fall I move the dry firewood into the shed. Done right, wood is cut in the spring, split, stacked in the sun along the edge of the driveway, then moved under cover for the winter. Every once in while I think it could just go right into the shed, saving the extra stacking. But I like it there in the sun all summer. You can almost hear it drying out.

There is a rhythm to picking up the pieces of wood and tossing them into the wheelbarrow. As each peace lands it hits the metal hull with a sound like the base note of a steel drum. I lift two pieces at a time, one in each hand. It is a mindless task; so simple my thoughts are free to wander.

Several winters ago there was a windstorm. Limbs were down all over the driveway. I came home in the dark and had to stop several times on the way to remove debris so the Trooper could get up the hill. Toward the top there was a fir tree across the road, too big to for me to move. In the headlights I could see it had missed the power lines leading to our house and to Bentz's place beyond. The only thing to do was to walk up to the house and get a saw. I turned off the engine and headlights and the world was suddenly black and quiet except for the rain. I got past the downed tree by feeling my way through a tangle of wet fir boughs. My clothes were soaked by the time I got through. I was forced to rely on instinct to find the way up the gravel road to the house. The power was out at the house. I found a flashlight that worked, then a headlamp and began ransacking the garage for the chainsaw.

It is that fir tree that I load into the wheelbarrow now, one small piece at time. It was the upper half of the tree that broke in the wind and fell across the driveway. There was an old snow break about 100 feet up, long since healed, but weaker nonetheless. That is where it snapped. The wood in my pile was once high above the ground, seeking light, waving in the wind. It holds a memory of 80 years or more on this hillside. Eighty summers of red tail hawk whistles, fall rains, occasional snowfalls, tender spring needles, and countless moons.

After many pulls, I gave up on the saw that hadn't been fired up since last year. I hate small gas engines. They are one of mankind's more perverse inventions. Each year I take the chainsaw to the holy men, the elders in coveralls, who perform mystical rituals so that it will run again. I always felt I should know the rituals myself. Dad did. Engines came apart in his hands, cleansed in a can of solvent, were strewn across a cluttered workbench, reassembled, healed. I have no patience for them.

It is September now and already I find yellow jackets curled up for the winter among the pieces of wood. Every once in a while, I find one waking up in the house in the middle of winter and realize I have brought it in with an arm load of fire wood. Further down in the stack, a small green tree frog leaps away as I remove its cover. Lower still there is the fragile shed skin of a snake, like a ghost of its departed owner.

As the wheelbarrow fills, I push it to the shed and then restack the pieces. The shed fills slowly as the stack outside dwindles. I am like a persistent ant, moving tiny pieces, one at a time, but steadily until a whole tree is moved. The shed is dark with a low roof and I must duck each time I enter. The floor is thick with duff. I remember building the lean-to on the side of the shed. Dad and I put new shingles on the roof one summer soon after he retired. Mom and Dad kept their travel trailer there during the winter. It was their guest room when they came to visit. I remember sitting inside the trailer playing hearts with Mom and my daughters. "Murder She Wrote" was playing on the small black and white TV. Dad would be reading the paper. On one such evening, Dad produced a tape recorder and turned it on. My daughters were just kids then. He asked them if they would ever wear a bikini. They thought the very idea of a bikini was funny and denied that they would ever consider such a thing. Dad was laughing so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks. I don't know what happened to that tape.

Swearing at the reluctant chain saw, I find a bow saw, ax, and pair of gloves in the dark garage. Walking down the hill to the fallen tree is easier with a light. The ax works well to cut off some of the limbs exposing the trunk. I hear a car on the driveway below and see headlights. It is my neighbor Kevin. He yells up the hill to ask if I am OK and do I need a chain saw. I tell him I'm OK and lie about having a chain saw. At least one that works. Kevin honks, and I see his lights disappear down the drive. It will be days before the power is back on. Maureen and I survive with the glowing wood stove for heat, candles, and a gas camp stove set up on the kitchen counter. Except for a lack of water, it is quite peaceful, a reminder of a time when a fire and candles were common ways to spend a winter evening. It makes you value daylight.

There is not much of the outside woodpile left now. After the last pieces are moved away I am left with bark and other debris to rake up and toss over the bank. There are a few pieces with many knots or grain so twisted that they defy my efforts to split them into a manageable size. These are relegated to the "son of bitch" pile. They are my failures that I keep, thinking someday I will overcome their obstinance. They trouble me sitting there. I imagine dynamite. How much better it would be to have a large bonfire of the stubborn logs. Or to just roll them into the woods to decay in silence. I think of the snakeskin in the woodpile whose owner moved on. I wonder where he is spending the winter.

ERIC GUNDERSON, A Eugene architect, has been stacking wood for more than 40 years. This essay was a finalist in the 2005 Oregon Quarterly contest.