Forestry Bliss: n. The experience of pure delight in a woodlot setting
The task of Chewonki farmers and students this time of year is a straight-forward one: produce firewood. The reality of how that plays out is a tad more complicated: farmers fell trees, take off limbs, and cut them to eight to twelve foot lengths. We twitch them out of the woodlot with Sal – she’ll pull one to four at a time, depending on size – and pile them onto a wooden sled called a scoot. We forward the scoot into a wood yard (also called a landing), an open space for processing. Using peaveys – a handy tool invented in Maine – we move logs into large stacks. Farmers buck them to 16-inch lengths, the right size for most woodstoves on campus. Students and farmers split the bucked wood with a maul, and toss it into the back of the farm truck to be delivered to one of the many woodshed scattered around campus. We stack it (Have you been counting? We’ve touched each piece of wood at least ten times by now.) in late spring and then burn it all winter long – in our cabins, our staff homes, our dining hall.
What’s blissful about all this work? Here are three examples of the pure delight:
- Two Saturdays ago was our low-impact forestry event within the semester: students, horses, teamsters, volunteers, and farmers moved in every direction for the whole of the morning. Students learned about forestry and saw a directional felling demonstration, spent time with teamsters and horses pulling logs out of the woods, and hand split firewood. My favorite overheard quote of the day was, “The relationship between the horse and human is so weird. The teamsters talk to their horses, and the horses talk back.” Well put, that comment. We had sweet horses and sassy horses and sweet and sassy horses. It was a joy to see all that busy-ness, that moving throughout the day . . . a blissful kind of joy.
- Yesterday was more dance than work with Sal in the woods. Today she was slower to respond, and two days ago I was too cranky to meet that beast on good terms and had to hand over the lines to another farmer. Oh, but yesterday. She was present, and I was present, and we pulled wood out of a tight little area, weaving between fir trees. She paused when I needed to regain my footing before I even asked that of her, and there was such subtlety to the whole of our communication that mostly I just thought about what needed to happen, and all I said aloud was, “What good listening, beast.” Bliss, I tell you.
- And lastly, there’s the following photo, which sums up the sheer potential for euphoria in the woodlot. This afternoon while wood splitting on work program, Isaac’s pile was bigger than most every other pile, and he was feeling proud – but in an inspiring, not braggart way – and the day was warm enough to strip down to short sleeves once you really got working. And then this shaft of sunlight shone right down on him and his pile, and he summited it at the encouragement of most of us in the woodlot . . . and this photo happened. Forestry bliss: n. see below.
