Wisdom of Proenneke
Finally started on One Man's Wilderness, a book I first heard Jeff and David talk about three years ago. Interesting stuff, the diary of a guy who heads to Alaska to build a cabin and get off the grid.
He says:
* Learn to use an axe and respect it and you can't help but love it. Abuse one and it will wear your hands raw and open your foot like an overcooked sausage. Each blade was nursed to a perfect edge, and the keenness of its bright edge made my strokes more accurate and more deliberate. No sloppy moves with that deadly beauty!
* There's no sleeping pill like a good day's work.
* To look around at what you have accomplished gives a man a good feeling. Too many men work on parts of things. Doing a job to completion satisfies a man.
* Wind and fire. Help you one minute and kill you the next.
* I guess if you learn not to expect much you won't be disappointed too often.
He says:
* Learn to use an axe and respect it and you can't help but love it. Abuse one and it will wear your hands raw and open your foot like an overcooked sausage. Each blade was nursed to a perfect edge, and the keenness of its bright edge made my strokes more accurate and more deliberate. No sloppy moves with that deadly beauty!
* There's no sleeping pill like a good day's work.
* To look around at what you have accomplished gives a man a good feeling. Too many men work on parts of things. Doing a job to completion satisfies a man.
* Wind and fire. Help you one minute and kill you the next.
* I guess if you learn not to expect much you won't be disappointed too often.
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