If you heat with wood as so many of us do, you are probably aware of the problem of getting the wood to fit the stove. We buy firewood, and get more from down and dead on the ranch, but somehow when it hits the woodshed its never small enough to get into the stove. In the past we have resorted to labor intensive, pre-industrial revolution techniques to size the wood. I mean sledge hammer and maul to split it. No more.

We are proud owners of a DR hydraulic wood splitter. Had it for over a year, and can't live without it. There is wood that will split - fir is great for splitting - and there is wood that won't split. How about knotty oak or madrone? Here's where the DR comes in handy. It has yet to encounter a round of firewood that would fit on the splitting deck and not split. Today as it wasn't heating up very well in nature, I built a fire in the wood stove, then notices I was a bit short on firewood. No problem. Plug in the splitter, and bingo three wheelbarrows full of rounds split and stacked in no time.

Some inventions are worth their weight in gold. The hydraulic logsplitter is one of them.

I may have solved this posting image business. If you see me in this entry, then look for more illustrated postings. This, by the by, is from an early attempt to look legal. My neighbor Frank is good a photoshoper, and inserted the background.

When I go to court in Santa Rosa (Sonoma County) I stay at the Motel 6 on Cleveland right next to Bicentenial Way. In the morning I walk across the freeway on the Bicentenial overpass, dodge traffic coming off the freeway onto Bicentenial, pass the Charlie Brown statue, cut thru a couple of parking lots, and there I am ready to go into court security.

I was ambitious this morning and left early. No credit for ambition in the Sonoma County courts. You may get there at 7:45 but you're not getting into the building until 8 when security opens the doors. It was cold, and when I got there 5 people were already ahead of me in line. If only we could have bought an iPhone when we got inside.

Sonoma does not trust lawyers any more than defendants. Everyone is emptying pockets and taking off belts, even lawyers. This sad fact is not true in Contra Costa county, or Mendocino County, or (yet) in Humboldt County, where lawyers don't get more than their briefcases x-rayed.

The Motel 6 has not changed since I was last there about 2 years ago, but I have. Now I expect wi-fi for the internet. They don't have it. Two years ago dial-up was fine - now my new Mac laptop doesn't even have a modem ( I bought an outboard modem but have never used it so it wasn't with me.) No internet doesn't cut it, even for a $50 room.

Travellers on 101 going South from Leggett are probably aware that the next stop for food and gas (remember that old joke?) is the Peg House opposite Standish-Hickey park. About a year ago it was up for sale and getting sad. Now its sprung back to life. Inside is a deli, a convenience store, a selection of books (and the Cannabible). Outside there is now a bandstand, outdoor tables (more fun in the summer) and a stand selling grilled items like burgers. I think its a beer garden, too. The restrooms are still over by the gas station, and a bit funky, but the deli is great, and they have a cross between a muffin and a cookie, called a mookie, that is irresistable but probably fatening. Recommended for lunch on those long trips south.

Jolly ran the Jaberwock, a folk music coffeehouse in Berkeley during the mid to late 1960s when the place was a ferment of musical talent as the culture was changing. Its safe to say that without him quite a bit of the subsequent music probably would not have occured because it was at his club that the talent was nurtured. Most of Country Joe and the Fish's members performed there as solo folk acts before getting together to be a band, Bukka White played there, Frankie Lee Sims did one of his last, and sad, public performances there. Its no easy task holding together a folk coffeehouse. There is never much money, the musicians have egos, the audience is fickle. Jolly managed for many years. He contacted me by email a year or so ago - the Jabberwock was perhaps the largest achievement in his life and he was setting up a web center for people who were part of it to communicate with each other, and by now there seems to be a considerable number of messages from participants and bystanders. But Jolly died Oct 27, 2007 from a heart attack following a gall bladder operation following a stroke. It just cascades once it starts.

This is the 3rd death from the 60s that I've had to write about in about a week: Backwards Sam Firk, Charlie Nothing, now Jolly. 2007 is a hard year for survivors from the 60s. Of course like surviors of the Titanic or vets of WWII, the group is thinning out all the time. Jeff Glasser did not make it thru the 70s I think. The musicians who have died are legion: Janis Joplin, Al WIlson - but musicians have a hard life if they succeed. Anyway, I hope this is the last obit of the year for me.

A radio show about the Jabberwock is being organized. I'm trying to recall things about Jolly to add to it.The Blind Steamer Trunk performance is going to be my favorite story, perhaps my only story? The people from the past are dying, and with them goes the chance of the living remembering it.