RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,318
(the emperor of nothing at all, pt. TWENTY)
I traded work for three or four days,
with Jack Stove. The deal was I'd
help him cut and split logs for half
of all the firewood. He had, back
in April/May, a logger cut about
15 very large trees off a portion
of river property that needed
clearing, and the large trunks
were strewn about on the ground.
I knew it was a ton of work, but
figured I'd throw in my lot with
the workers, and why not? Last
year's firewood, cut and dried, was
70 bucks a pick-up truck self-load,
and this year I'd already seen that
trending towards 120. Gasoline
prices and all the rest effect it.
There were two other guys there
to help - each work-for-pay guys
who got paid each Friday. I took
the job only for the wood - no
money had ever been offered.
-
So, anyway, the entire thing took up
four or five days, a little more than
I'd figured for and surely a lot more
back-breaking (for me) than I had
thought it would be. (It wood be?).
I got through it OK, - a hamstring
ache and some heavy-lifting and
breathing stress notwithstanding.
-
I like to see how things are done. It's
a quirk I have - wondering how the
local woods-people sweep through
their tasks - seasonal or not - tasks
that most other people - suburbans
or urbans - would find onerous
or perplexing. The plain-frame fact,
up here, of timber and firewood is
simply a part of life, and if one doesn't
properly face it off the Winter gales
and the needs for staying warm can
quickly disabuse a person of any
notion of both comfort and warmth
with no stress to it. Everyone knows
it's work, and 70 percent of the homes
old or not, I'd bet, have fireplaces.
When these guys are into the work,
there's little discussion 'about' it. It
just needs getting done. Most of the
talk was - surprisingly - about
the wood being handled - red oak,
'hottest burn; the pure energy in ash,
useless 'doughy' wood that had been
left too long, old trees, knots, and
any other thing that affected to log
splitter's efficiency. We were using
a 35-ton unit, having had a previous
20-ton unit burn out and pop its
hydraulics. The 35-to unit split
easily through most anything, and
the knurls and knots that had stressed
the 20-ton unit meant nothing to this
larger one. (It was rented for 60 bucks
a day, and had been brought in by
truck. Jack Stove had not wanted to
purchase a 'new' one, for 2500 some
dollars. As he put it, 'At my age, why?
I maybe use it five or six days a year
and can't see it being worth the new
investment.' Fair enough I guessed,
BUT, I found that the sort of person
Jack was, with scheduled work looming
in front of him, meant that the idea of
any wasted moment, at 60 bucks a day,
was enough to cause him a paroxysm
of despair. The clock was ticking, as
they say, and he became a breakneck
fool about NOT needing a fourth day's
rental. Thus, the day's works were
long, and intense.
-
He also had an excavator, medium-sized
unit, of his own, which he manned. He
maneuvered and spun it around with
a deft skill, learned from use. With it,
clutched the tree-trunks and placed them
into a position for chain-sawing into 18"
segments. Those segments eventually
went into the log-splitter operation, to
make four fireplace cuts from each piece
of trunk. The log-splitter was manned
by two people - one to load and control
the cuts, and the other (me) to remove
and stack the cut pieces. We eventually
ended up, after three days, with five,
ample, six feet high, piles of firewood,
stacked. (Like they used to say about
girls, 'well-stacked'. It's a guy thing).
Then, of course, I had eventually to
get my pickup loaded each time, by
myself and by hand, to take away my
portion of what was cut. It came out
that I took three loads, with the option
of grabbing more as needed through the
Winter; snow and access, of course,
assumed.
-
After the first day's work (it was still
pretty warm out) we all sat around and
had beer; but that only worked for the
first day - on the other days everyone
cleared quickly when Stove said we
were done. Little was made of that,
but I think that after the first we
each saw the sort of labor we faced,
and 10 hours of that crap was enough,
free beer or not. I know when I got
home my clothes were still drenched
in sweat. I washed them, and hung
them up nicely. (They were 'well-hung',
as is said. It's a girl thing).
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