Acknowledgement is the First Step in the Road to Recovery

I come from a family of quasi-hoarders.  We are not as bad as the hoarders on TV but I do empathize with their predicament.  Keeping too much stuff that you do not really need is a difficult tendency to manage.  You tell yourself you might use/need/read it someday, but really?  Will you?

The strangest thing about my family's hoarding is that we often hoard things that have to do with wood.  My cousin Matt hoards barn boards.  My father hoards, among other things, piles of old plywood and building materials.  My Grandpa Ed had all kinds of piles of old farm equipment and building supplies on his property back North.  

I hoard books.  They line my living room walls.  I call it my "library" to make it sound sophisticated but really, when it comes down to it, I have a wood related product hoarding problem too.

Baby Seamus in my "library".

To make matters worse, I married a wood hoarder.  I know, what are the odds?!  But, it is true. 

Ian hoards wood logs.  He claims they are fuel for his smoker and camp fires but the piles of these logs get in the way and never seem to go down.  Moreover, Ian is an "organized" hoarder.  He refuses to mix the different types of wood (apple wood with cherry wood with "junk" wood).  This means that his piles of wood must occupy different locations on our property.  For example, there is junk wood for camp fires under a canoe on the side of the house, apple wood in recycling boxes in front of the garage, and a pile of cherry wood on my front porch.  

Until yesterday.

I am on a crusade to make the front of our property look presentable from the road.  After all the tree trimming, gardening, and pressure washing I decided that random piles of hoarded wood in front of the house were no longer acceptable.  So I fixed the problem.

Along with my hereditary "wood products hoarding" gene, I have also inherited a "wood piling" gene.  Just last week, I got a photo from my Dad proudly displaying his winter wood pile at the cottage.  

My Dad's wood pile.

Finally, a time to put this gene to good use.  I relocated Ian's cherry wood pile from my front porch to the side of our yard, piled safely and dryly (his two prerequisites for wood relocation) under yet another canoe.  Did I mention Ian also hoards canoes?

My wood pile

The wood pile totally hidden.  Bet you cannot tell it is under there!

Honestly, I am not sure we are on the road to recovery from our wood products hoarding problem.  Come to think of it, maybe hiding our hoarding under a canoe is worse than displaying it in front of the house.  Am I encouraging wood hoarding in secret?  I may have created a monster.  All trees in the vicinity beware!