Stubborn as a mule

Well, after saying I was going to make things easier on myself in the woodcutting game, I decided to go back out to that Douglas-fir and get the 14-foot buttlog I left on the hill. After a relaxing one hour drive, I arrived and took my time. I limbed the top end of the log that was on the fill slope of the road and placed that in such a way that when I rolled the rounds, they would stop before flying over the road. I found out that resting after doing something your body isn't accustomed to is a great idea...because this time the big saw didn't seem so unwieldy. I then went up the hill and began bucking rounds...I'm thinking 10 to 12 came out of it. And they were HEAVY. I was kinda glad for the 3-foot bar, getting closer to the stump it was starting to come in handy.

Well, the sawing done I began the fun task of rolling rounds down the hill. Sure enough, they all went about 10 feet and all piled up together against a stump and under some alder. After that, it looked like a clear shot to the road. No sweat! I rolled the first round down and it went straight to the road, then veered away from my carefully placed log and went SAILING down the hill. I heard it crashing and bashing for quite awhile before it stopped. "No worries, it was bound to happen to at least one," I calmly told myself. The second one was on it's way down a couple seconds later and it too went over the road and joined it's brother down there.

Okay, after the fifth one did that I started to giggle. "What if they all go over the edge?" Best not to even think it. These rounds would get some more speed going down the cutslope and not even bat an eye at my piddly little "stopper" down there. EVERY ROUND BUT TWO went over the road and down the slope about 40 yards. Hmmm, all that work for nothing?


This is all that stopped at the road. The smaller rounds were from my "stopper."

Well, I decided to at least see how far the rounds went. Maybe some were close to the road and I could roll them up. Sure enough, I found four that weren't too far and did just that.

The only ones I could roll up. (There is one back there in the brush)

Hmmm, now what? A sane person would go look for another easy tree and just finish out the load that way. But I only had myself to consult with, and you all know how I am. I wanted that log! It was early yet, I wasn't tired, the temperature was perfect. "Maybe I'll go down there and see just how far they are." So, that's what I did. True to my prediction, most of them were 40 yards down the hill, but luckily were all grouped together. A terrific idea came into my head, so I went back up to the truck and got the maul. Yup, see where THIS is headed?

I really did it. I went down there and split up this wet, heavy wood into mostly halves. The "rind" on it was so wet that a maul hit would cause water to spray out of the impact site...just so you have an idea. Then the effort of hauling these half-rounds up the 30% slope was underway. I piled it all right under the fill slope so the second effort wouldn't be too far of a carry. By the time I was done I had one heck of a trail down the side of that mountain...all just from my boots and the weight I was carrying. After a good two hours of this, I had all the wood to the side of the road! I had saved my log and even picked up some of what went over the edge last weekend.


What I humped up the hill


Small load, big saw


Three+ hours for THAT?

The good news was that I was able to laugh at myself most of the day and I got a lot of exercise. And it's kinda funny, I went to work on Monday and told people this ridiculous story and most of the other woodcutters in the bunch all said, "oh yea, I've done that before." At least I'm not alone.
And, this is something I noticed a couple weeks ago. I see this dumpster a lot...I appreciate that people can recognize the message despite all the dumb stuff I tend to do. (nono, it's not about me and NO I did not write it. Seems to be some sort of juvenile judging by what's written on the inside of the dumpster.)

Odd graffiti