Greg is very happy these days since having his fantasy fulfilled, and I’m very tired for the effort. But of course I am talking about his dream of being a lumberjack. Since retiring earlier this year he’s been busy finishing his woodworking workshop (complete with 3 car garage and extra sleeping space on the 3rd floor) and also a lumber storage shed (which looks like a giant pie safe). So what would any self-respecting woodworker do next, with tools unpacked and workshop complete? GET WOOD! Raw materials, a palette for his art, as it were.
When most people go hiking or commune with nature they see the splendor of the forest. Greg sees ‘board feet’. He had been eyeing trees on our back property and I guess it was time to harvest. Luckily, we now live in the Adirondacks where logging is a hobby. Tom, our neighbor and logging expert (or as I call him, ‘the tree whisperer’) gauged each tree for viability and anticipated direction of tree fall. After Tom felled each tree, Greg would clean off branches and cut the trunk into 8 or 12 foot sections. Jeff, standing by with excavator, moved each log into a pile for eventual sawing into lumber. By the end of the week, 11 VERY LARGE maple and birch trees (each over 60 or even 80 feet tall) were harvested and ready for Roger to begin his sawyer-ing. Roger has a portable sawmill and processed each log, removing bark, squaring the log, and with Greg determined the best cut for the lumber. Roger is somewhat (well, VERY) reclusive and quiet, as Greg and I found out as we spent the following 3 weeks working with him. Roger cut and Greg and I stacked and stickered each board resulting in almost 10,000 board feet of beautiful maple, curly maple, and birch boards. Greg may have a hard time using up all the wood that we now have in several 8x12x12 foot piles scattered around the yard. Luckily, all this work progressed without injury or mechanical breakdown and now the snow is here and the high temperature today is 6 degrees F. I think we’re settling into this North Country life pretty well. And we look so good in wool plaid!
My new reality 