On bush time

I'm not quite sore this morning, which means I almost worked hard enough yesterday. Hard enough for muscles to feel pleasantly used, though, and for a massive old fire-killed cedar snag to be stacked in the woodshed, blended with a smaller, sweetly-cured dead spruce.

Our return to the bush was too sudden and late in the season to allow for anything really resembling preparation. Now the hastily assembled woodpile has been pretty much taken apart. We've been promised a late winter buried in snow and gripped by savage cold. So far we've just got the snow, but February lies ahead. So for the past few days it's been wood. Yesterday's haul took me four hours with a lot of help from Tammy and a little help from Fats. Fats is our youngest kid, Kelty. Fourteen and fat as a toothpick.

If four hours sounds like a long time to haul home the bucked-up bounty of two logs then you, like me, live close to your wood. A normal, practical rural dude would have done it without help in less than half the time. Except that a normal, practical rural dude would never have allowed such a situation to develop in the first place. Only a fuckin' retard would.

Oh well. There I go again.

Actually, I could have done it that quick as well, and I usually do. By being practical and using my truck to haul the wood. The normal practice. Actually it's an infestation of those dudes that partly inspired my decision to be ridiculously slow. Cause logging is especially busy on our little road this winter. Some years there's nothing, some years a bit. Right now there are four trucks running, seems like four loads a day each. Empty, loaded that's 32 times a day the whole damn slippery little strip of twisty gravel is pretty much blocked by towering tons of truck and trees coming at you fast and without a lot of regard for anyone so unbusinesslike as to not even be calling his kilometres. Did I mention the highways department took over this former forest service road 30 years ago?

I've only had to burrow into a snowbank twice so far this year, though. And who likes a boring drive?

Anyway, to cut firewood like a normal person in winter ('cept they don't), the first thing you have to do is drive up a tree-lined road that's plowed. There are only two reasons anyone plows a road way out here in January. One is that it's a public road like the one described above. The other is that it's a privately maintained active-hauling logging road which is infinitely worse. Driving those, in a winter of heavy logging, is one thing. Parking on them while you set about butchering and loading up a few trees is something slightly more. Not that I haven't done it, but it's not exactly fun.

The other reason that I wanted to use my body instead of my truck to shift a couple tons of  wood is kinda the same as the first only simpler. It's just more fun. And more exercise. And...turns out the other reason isn't really that much simpler. Okay.

For example, did you know that if you use your body to pack firewood out of the bush in three feet of snow, it's condiditon improves? And if you use your truck for the same task, it's condition deteriorates? That's not a practical consideration, though. If you've got no time and lots of money. Don't let a splash of sarcasm confuse you. I remain a hopelessly impractical fellow. It's just that I've got all day.

Of course, it's much better for the poor old environment if you use your body instead of an internal combustion engine to move heavy objects from one place to another. Only it's not really. Because I tell you this, in the pompous prefacing of the Lizard King, this human race that you and I belong to isn't going to stop burning oil until there isn't a drop of it left. Unless we wipe ourselves out before it's gone. If you doubt that you just haven't been paying attention.

Anyway, there were a few good standing dead trees out past the outhouse and the future building site and through the ravine where the nameless little stream runs about 10 months out of the year. 

Here's how it works. You wade out there with your saw, ass deep in snow, shifting it's 25-odd awkward pounds from one protesting arm to the other. You knock the trees down, limb 'n' buck 'em, and backtrack with the first block, bellowing for reinforcements. By this time there's starting to be a bit of a trail. Oh, and your sweating, breathing hard. Feeling good. Turns out there are volunteers. Off the three of you go, then. By the time you're all headed back, you're actually walking on a pretty damn fine trail. It's still warm for January. There's a light snow falling, but the clouds are high and there's the odd bit of sun coming through. And it's looking like a pretty damn fine afternoon. 

Building site? Yeah we've affectionately referred to this place as the 'guest suite' since we gave it a bullshitectomy and set it free. We'll be the guests most of the time cause... that loft. Who wants to sleep all the way inside for most of the year? We've already had a taste and we like it. That whole, massive semi-outdoor space, in particular, remains forever part of a fluid future living arrangement that has come to include a separate little cabin at some future point. Mostly we just want to try some different things. And we've got the perfect spot. We're more sure of that than ever. Cause we walked right through the middle of it 30 or so times yesterday, stopping often. It's good to rest. And take long looks around. Figure out which trees we'd have to take out to get that view down the valley. Which we'll get to keep and which we'll wait and see about. More than firewood got moved a little closer yesterday.

Water got moved a little closer too. Sorta. We haul in all our water here, from nearby creeks. Yes in the damn truck. Or nearby snowman banks. But not since yesterday.

We got tired of stepping over the trickling little creek with our woodblocks, briefly discussed using it as a water source before writing it off as too small, bridging it with a couple planks. Then someone spotted a wider, deeper hole. So we took a break from wood and picked up shovels, dug it deeper and wider. Rigged a little plywood deck beside it. It was never practical to hand-bomb water from that little creek in all the years we were roaring right by better sources in the truck every damn day anyway. And of course a normal, practical rural dude would have drilled a well and backhoed a water line and tacked on some taps a long time ago. Which is what we used to think we oughta be getting around to. Why? Well that's still sorta out there somewhere.

There's a lot of wood still out there, too. Time to get a little more of it into the shed. Just a little, though. Cause there ain't no slower way to get it done. A glorious waste of time.

-Dennis