SOLSC '25 Day Eight: Swinging temps and hairy logs

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

 "I'm going shopping with you today," I told my husband.  "I need to get snacks for my Battle of the Bluebonnets team."  The weather forecaster had mentioned that we would get a cold front coming in, so I dressed in jeans and a light sweatshirt.

I was sweating before we even got to the store.  When we got home and unloaded the groceries from the car in the bright sunshine, I contemplated changing before running errands this afternoon.

I'm glad I didn't.

My son and I drove to Michael's to buy tee shirts for the aforementioned team.  It was warm when we walked in...and cold when we walked out.  One more stop at the Hallmark store to use my birthday coupon, and the temps had dropped even more, the wind whipping so hard that I had to grab my shopping bag tight on the short walk to the car.

As they say around these parts...if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.

*****

I still needed a breath of fresh air, so I stepped out to the backyard despite the chilly gusts.  The sun was shining at the front of the house, and the gray clouds were looming at the back.

We never saw a drop of rain.

What I did notice was the odd texture of the bark peeling from some logs.  When our old oak in the front yard fell in an ice storm, I insisted on keeping some of the sections.  They've been sitting on our back porch for two years now.  I've never seen logs peel spontaneously.  The texture of both the inside of the bark and the exposed log looks more like fur than wood.

Maybe this is Mother Nature's way of telling me it's time to do something with this wood.  Bench legs, perhaps?  Maybe the base of a birdbath or two?  Anyone know a good woodmill and carpenter?