Tis' the season!

I guess I should just apologize in advance, because unless you enjoy tales of logging activites, this blog will be consumed with them for the next few days, and you may become quite bored by my revery of trees and the roads I take to reach them.

Tis' the season:  Harvest-in all aspects of the word.  The garden has been lovingly tended by Brett, Kevin, and Katherine, and is due any day now.  The wheat farms surrounding my home on all sides have been harvested and the stubble remains as a golden reminder of what it once was and will be again; next spring, next summer and again at harvest.

The hunting and claiming of firewood has been the charge of Dallas and myself.  Friday and Saturday were consumed by this pastime, which many people view as a dull chore, an unavoidable necessity for those living and thriving in the challenging Northwest, but one that the two of us approach with wide smiles and excitement.  With this aspect of harvest season, I am flooded with a nostalgia for summers spent with my grandparents in Montana.  

1971 Chevy Cheyenne, .22 Rifle

As a child, I wondered to myself how it was that we were shipped out to Montana every year just in time to be utilized as a few extra hands; running water out to Grampa out on the tractor mowing the alfalfa field; waking around dawn, piling into the Dodge, with homemade lunches from Gramma, moving slowly up the mountain to harvest firewood; tending the garden in the evenings with Gramma, lamenting at how sneaky those deer are who just the night before had stripped the raspberry bush clean. 

We have embraced this seasonal transition and workload, having spent this weekend north of the homestead, on Idaho State Land ready for the harvest.  We piled into the old Chevy with high hopes of filling its eight foot bed with Tamarack or other hot burning, good quality wood.  Winding up the mountain, from the rolling gold that is the Palouse, State Highway 6 becomes surrounded by wheat and barley fields; green meadows feed cows and their babies, and coyote peek pointy ears up above the tall grass.  We drive through the towns of Princeton and Harvard, which are only noticeable due to a sign, a tavern and a few houses as outliers.  I can't help but wonder if this is an improbable coincidence or if they were humorously given their names...I think it's the latter.  

Dallas and Kellan cutting down a giant

We continued the ascent, enjoying the languid afternoon as we drove the White Pine Scenic Byway. Our road is a narrow one, surrounded by tall Red and White Fir, Tamarack and Lodgepoll Pine, a sight so different from the arid, sage-spotted Wyoming terrain I have been a part of for so long. Arriving at our turnoff, we immediately spot a prospect: an amber needled, dead tree. It was so big that when I pull the zoom back to its furthest, I still couldn't contain it within my frame!

The guys quickly got to work, hurriedly lacing their tall boots and laughing out loud with excitement.  We fell the giant in less than ten minutes, and got to work cutting it into rounds, which we then rolled downhill to the truck.  I stacked the wood in the truckbed, which was a skill I mastered by the age of ten, so it felt nice to be able to contribute to the overall effort. 

The second half of the giant

We filled the truck and were headed back down the mountain with the feeling that it was late in the afternoon.  Upon breaking onto the road, without full tree cover, we finally saw the sunshine, and realized it wasn't even four o'clock in the afternoon. Enjoying the drive home felt well-earned; we had pulled in about a cord of wood, and were looking forward to seeing it fill the empty garage.

Hoosier, holding down the fort

This harvest was a new type for me.  It was no longer the early morning trips I took with family, but something of my own choosing.  I am learning the seasonal events that punctuate a lifestyle such as the one I have chosen.  I am open to them, and savoring the work, the experience; the test of whether I can do it, rather than just dream it.