Woodcutting

Many weeks ago, right after the first snow, I went with ShadowOwl and his father and stepmother to help gather wood. The forest service periodically has these days where they need to clear out some trees and instead of just chipping the wood, or whatever they would do with it, they offer it to the public. This time it was in the Pike National Forest.

As the directions they gave were not the greatest we stopped to ask for directions at the information office/ranger station/gift shop. They had several fossils including a bee fossil. I like to get a lapel pin when I find one I like or go somewhere interesting so here I got a pin representing the bee fossil. (I'll have to take pictures of the pins and put them up at some point.)

When we finally found the site and arrived at a wood pile I could tell that it wouldn't be easy.

Wet snow covered everything but we just waded in and started hacking off the smaller branches so the chainsaw could get at the logs.

We worked for a while in one location but then decided to move to another location that had just been vacated and had much better logs.

We filled the back of the pickup to above the top of the truck sides when we decided we were done and needed to tie it all down.

It was tough work and we were all ready to be done when we finished.

ShadowOwl's father thought he was funny when he pointed to that tree and said, "One more?"

It was amazing how fast the snow had melted that day. On the way out much that had been entirely covered was bare with no evidence that it had snowed at all.