Wednesday, December 30, 2015

How big was it?


I couldn't wait another 30 years so the other day I took down the other birch whose twigs interfere with my Denali photos.

This one was a different matter. For one, it was huge, much bigger than the first one and situated in such a way if not cut properly it could have fallen in any direction. The first one already had a good lean in a downhill direction. This one not so much.

Now, approaching a tree that weighs tons and can fall on you, takes some planning. Where to drop it: the safest direction, but also a direction in which you have ample access for the process of bucking it up into firewood lengths. Then in this country in deep snow you have to consider footing too. You want it so your feet don't slip, but you also want to be able to get the hell out of the way quickly in case the tree doesn't go where it's supposed to.

Think about this: The logging industry usually makes the top ten list for dangerous jobs along with fishing in Alaska. There are serious injuries and deaths almost every year. And, those guys are pros; they know what they are doing. Then a neophyte like me wanders into the woods and tries to take down a huge tree based mostly on the instructions that came with the chainsaw he bought which is a little on the light side for work like this. Granted I have done it enough now I feel like I know the basics, but I am nowhere near the supposed proficiency of those professionals in the deep woods down south, the ones who suffer injuries and deaths at least at a nation-class level.    

So I approached this guy very carefully. My planning paid off; the tree came down exactly where I had expected it to land.

How big a tree is it? After it came down I made a rough measurment from the stump to the highest branch I could find. It was between 60 and 70 feet tall. It was a little difficult to tell because there were gaps and a lot of upper branches ended up buried in the snow. There's also this: My 50-foot tape measure only went to 48 feet. I recalled a business law teacher I had years ago. He once counted the paper clips in a 100-count package. There were 97. He then figured how much the company saved over a year by giving consumers three fewer paper clips in each box. It was considerable. And then I wondered how much this tape-measure company saved by counting on the fact that very few people would measure out to 50 feet and cutting off two feet. Two feet of metal tape, plus printing times a couple hundred thousand sold. Again, probably a considerable amount. So I had to measure twice, estimate the gaps and came up with something taller than 60 feet.

Height, though, isn't the only measure of a tree. The diameter of the trunk at the point of the lowest cut I made was a little more than 22 inches. Probably should have measured circumference too because I can't quite get my arms around those lower ones. That doesn't matter much becasue I can't lift them either. This is dense wood and it is h-e-a-v-y.

So today, it is down, bucked up and stacked next to the trail at the bottom of the hill. A few rounds have been split with many more to go. I will have to split the big ones down there and bring them up in pieces. There are still some branches deep in the snow also and I might have to wait for summer to cut them. Some of the branches I have already cut up are larger than some trees I have cut in the past. So there's a long way to go yet.

Still, it's a warm feeling just having accomplished this much of the process and knowing with some confidence that I will have an adequate supply of firewood for a while. And I haven't even gotten to the point yet where Thoreau started counting for his "wood warms you twice" statement.

As my friend Joe May says, "out here a man is judged by the size of his wood pile."

There's also the joy of taking Denali pictures without those twigs in them.

To cut or not to cut
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The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

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“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.― Kurt Vonnegut

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The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

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My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

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Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

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One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

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It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

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As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

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You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

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