East Pole Journal V. II, Episode 11: Inventory

Cut vertically and ready to split

As I sat on an upended chunk of a tree trunk I had cut for firewood enjoying a boketto moment
an answer came to me. I think, that’s what I do. I think. The most common question I hear about living out here amounts to “what do you do all day?” I usually say “I live” and if I have to I point out that everything takes longer in the Bush even the most mundane of household chores. If pressed I go down a list ending in I write sometimes and that usually satisfies the questioner as I have given him something of an acceptable productive effort in my existence that he can understand. As far as thinking goes, it races from subject to subject: failed loves to future loves, fantasies about the ATT girl, past failures, past successes, past arguments argued all over again; sometimes I even argue with Henry David Thoreau. I have 75 years of life to reflect on, you understand.

So there I was today in Boketto mode not thinking about much when I started taking a firewood inventory. This grew very complicated as you will see. To begin with, this chunk I sat on stood among 19 others like it that had been cut into sections ready for splitting. These from the lower trunk are so thick and heavy I can’t split them even with an 18-pound splitting maul, so nine of them already have a vertical cut in them about halfway down. That allows me to make it split with the first crack at it. But, hold on, this is the middle of the story.

First split, easy peasy with the cut 

Firewood makes up the biggest chore of the winter. When I came out I had two cords of birch stacked from last year plus three-fourths of a cord of spruce that I cut for kindling and fire starting. That gave me half a cord a month for the winter. A cord is two rows of split wood cut to wood stove lengths (18-20 inches in my case) and the stacked rows are 8 feet long and 4 feet high.

That’s where I started and once I got settled in the effort to cut firewood began. I point out what I think is the futility of a life spent cutting enough firewood for the next winter so you can be warm while you cut wood for the year after that., and on and on. 

One chunk split
           almost fills a sled

I got that spruce cut down and sectioned and then took down this huge birch I was sitting on. Then disaster. I made a mistake and accidentally took my chainsaw out. Simply imagine what 5/8-inch poly rope would do if it is chewed up by a chainsaw and strands of it crammed though moving machinery as it melts in the heat. Done. I drove more than 100 miles round trip to buy a new saw. Then. Get this, I could not get it started. And, get this: the little bit I had been able to run it, it didn’t seem to be big enough to handle the huge birch I am sitting on. Near the base the trunk is 18 to 20 inches in diameter. The saw bar is 18 inches. I had to make that drive again, in the back of my mind thinking maybe they’d let me trade it in on a bigger one, but, no, they got it running. Back home, I spent the better part of a week but still couldn’t start it. Frustrated, I went to a more local dealer who sells the same brand of saw and I went there and bought a bigger one. Got it home, and guess what, I couldn’t get this one to start either. So I took it back. This time only 30-miles round trip plus the 14 on the snowmachine.

With some advice and some demonstration from these new people I finally got it started, though not without flooding it a couple of times. I decided enough was enough dedicated last Sunday to starting both saws before I did anything else and by 1 p.m. I had them both running.

Mind you, the pressure to get firewood in for next winter had consumed my mind and actions for weeks. If I couldn’t do that it might end the adventure. I even considered bugging out, but there’s this. I have nowhere to go.

Then, with the saws running, Monday, I started in earnest and have made great progress since
.

Long way to go, even some under
the snow up toward the stump.

But, there has been other pressure, too. We have had a cold snap for almost three weeks now and temperatures constantly flirting with zero. As a result my firewood consumption increased considerably and I used up my February ration almost a week ahead of time. Normally at this time of year as most days the temperature gets up into the 20s I stoke the fire up in the morning and then let it go out over the course of the day. That’s five or six hours when I am not burning wood. Now, I was going to be able to fill up for next year but it looked seriously like I might run out this year. To top it off, that beetle-killed spruce I cut earlier still showed 16% moisture despite being dead for at least three years and would not burn. That was supposed to be my backup.

So today while I am splitting big chunks of birch and taking it to the stack, I found another half a stack of last year’s. Then I tried some more of that spruce on a going fire and darned if it didn’t flame up.

If at this point someone had come along and encountered me, he would have seen a totally satisfied man in a boketto trance with a big smile on my face. Then I had this thought: I sympathize with those folks in Texas, they really aren’t prepared for what amounts to a day in the life for an Alaskan. Still I would love to tell one of them that I just stopped working in mid-20s weather because I was sweating too much. The last thought before I stood up and began the trek pulling a sled full of split wood to the house was that solving a problem so seemingly insignificant as starting a chainsaw could change a whole outlook on life.

 

Oh, yeah. “Boketto.” It’s a Japanese word that loosely means staring off into the distance blankly with nothing on your mind. I do that a lot.

East Pole Journal