What I love about cutting wood...
This is the season where I get out in the woods, fell some trees, and try to imagine how much firewood I'm going to need for the winter that is still 6 months away (ok, it's Michigan, maybe 4 months).
Yesterday I was out in the woods and got to thinking about what it is that stabs me with such joy while I'm sweating in the sweltering 90 degree heat. The conditions at the time were particularly nasty. I had to wear a long sleeve shirt and gloves and long pants which made me feel like I was a wrester cutting weight in a sauna, my eyes were watering because the wind was redirecting the exhaust from the chainsaw up into my eyes, I could feel sawdust in my boots and on my face, in my nose, in my ears and down my back, the sweat was caking the sawdust and dirt all over my body and was dripping off my eyebrow, nose, chin, and earlobes if you can believe it. My clothes were drenched and my body was aching from picking up these massive pieces of oak into the wood cart.
There was one moment when I was rolling these huge chunks of woods to the cart and then bending down to lift them over the sidewalls into the bed of the wagon. After three of them I collapsed to the ground lying flat on my back in utter exhaustion. I still had about 12 more to get and I remember saying to myself, "Just one more, Jay, just one more. You can do this." (I talk to myself in the woods to keep motivated when I just want to pack it in for the day.) I would rouse myself and push myself to the point of a borderline heat stroke...it was insane. I just made sure I had my cell phone in case I fell in a heap and couldn't get back up. My wife would kill me if I did something stupid like that. She knows that I'll work myself into a sickness. A few times I've about passed out in dehydration and heat exhaustion. Her warnings echo in my ears as I push my body to its maximum capacity.
So why do I do this?
I love to work hard. I love physical labor. I love having a goal in mind and pushing myself to accomplish it. There's just something so invigorating about honest toil.
But I think it's something else. I think it makes me feel close to my dad.
This was something we shared together every year of my childhood. We would be in the woods a lot and as my dad would cut down trees, I would drag them out into the open field all lined up in the clearing so we could cut them up next to the same converted old manure spreader that I inherited and use to this day. I remember my dad sharpening his own blades as I hauled loads of wood back to the old woodshed. By the time I would get back, he would have another cache ready for me to load onto the wagon and take back to the cement slab outside the woodshed so that we could split it all in one place with my grandpa's homemade wood splitter that hooked on the back of the 8N Ford tractor PTO. It was quite the cobbled contraption, but it did the job.
So there's just something about being in the woods that brings back all those memories, but more than that, it brings back feelings of closeness with my father. It's when I felt we were equals, a time when we both had something to offer and teamed up to do what we couldn't do alone. I needed his wisdom to run the saw and to do the dangerous stuff in the woods, he needed my young and tireless body to pick up the wood and throw it around. We were an awesome team.
But there's one other things that I crave about the woodcutting experience. The circle of accomplishment that I can actually account for. So much of my job as a pastor is hard to calculate and quantify, but with hauling wood...you can see when you're making progress and you can measure completion. That alone leaves me with a therapeutic feeling.
1. It starts early in the spring where I walk the woods and see what trees are dead wood standing and need to be felled as well as trees and branches that have fallen over the course of the year and need to be harvested.
2. I walk around the woods again and again looking for paths to get to said trees with my tractor and cart so that I can get them out of woods without ruining the beauty of the landscape. I look for open paths in the maze of seedlings, rocks, swamps, and trees to make it deep into hard-to-get places to gather the wood I've cut. There's no use cutting up a tree if I can't get to it.
3. Then, around May, I go get the Bar and Chain oil, I mix the fuel making sure it's the correct ration of oil and gas, I secure a good stock of sharpened blades, I tune up the trusty chainsaw, and head out into the woods to work my plan that I strategized while I walked the woods several times in April.
4. Then comes the day when I grab my chainsaw, my gas, my bar & chain oil and head out into the woods to begin cutting. I'm dressed in the nastiest clothes you ever did see, but this is part of the wild aspect of being a woodsman...you're alone and nobody cares. (except my family who sees me heading out there all scary looking).
5. I begin going crazy with cutting up tree after tree letting the pieces fall to the ground ready to be gathered at a later date. I go through so many chains and so much gas and oil, but I try and stay in that frame of mind. My arms and my lower back smart a little bit, I can feel the burn of certain muscles that don't get worked much. I work my way through the woods taking all the wood that I'd marked out in my mind way back in April.
6. After I've done that, I get the wagon hooked up to the tractor and I start the process of getting to the wood I've cut up so that I can get it out of the woods and into my backyard in large stacks where it awaits the gauntlet of the wood splitter. I love to see these piles growing bigger and bigger with every cart of wood I haul in.
7. When I've accumulated what I believe to be the amount of wood I'll need for the upcoming winter in huge stacks in the backyard, I will call my dad to come over for a couple days to get it all split up with me. He can't move around much these days, but he can pull out a chair and work the lever as I move about the ground like Gollum getting the wood positioned for splitting. We can make light work of a lot of wood in a short time with these new splitters. It's another couple days of pushing my
body to its threshold of endurance, but again, the feeling of accomplishment is palpable. And doing this part with my dad gives me the added boost of adrenaline I need to get 'er done!
8. Then I leave the split wood in piles to dry over the winter. I really should stack it so that it can dry better, but one only has so much time and manpower, so I let it dry right where it sits. I also love to see the huge stacks of split wood on the back edge of my property as I sit on my deck throughout the summer. It's like a king that looks out over his kingdom perched up in his castle in the evening.
9. Around October when it cools down a bit, I gas up the tractor and begin the next phase of wood-gathering. It's time to haul all that split wood up to the house where I stack it with my sons along the right wall inside the garage. This is a part that my boys love to help me out in short spirts. If I tell the that this is something men do, strong me, it keeps them engaged a lot longer. They have the attention span of a puppy, so it takes some tricks to keep them motivated and in motion. There are two rows of wood and these stacks are about 8 foot high and over 20 foot long. A mother load of wood.
10. Then the air chills and snow starts flying and every time I need to get some wood to stoke the fireplace, I walk out into my garage and get an armful that I pack into the inserted wood stove. As I fit the wood in, it's like a game of Tetris. I find a sick joy in getting it just right...hahaha.
11. And then comes the best part. The wood that used to be standing tall in the dense woodland has been repurposed to produced heat for my home. My wife and children gather around the warm fire all winter long. The wood stove becomes the place where my family gathers to laugh, play, talk, cry, tell stories, plan our schedules, and watch television. The wood brings my family together and gives off its one-of-a-kind heat. It turns into energy...isn't that crazy. All the energy I put into it, it turns around and gives back to me. What goes around comes around.
12. Every so often I have to shovel out the ashes that are building up in the stove to make room for the wood to burn efficiently. This is the final stage of the wood's life cycle, and I get to see every part of the cycle making me appreciate it acutely. There is something hallowed about the whole process of burning wood. I feel so connected to the wood at every stage. I feel so grateful to the wood for its contribution to my family. Like a hunter who is grateful to the deer who died to put meat in the freezer for his family, I feel that same honor. I also feel such a surge of accomplishment with every stage of wood cutting, wood gathering, wood splitting, right up to the moment of wood burning. There is something in each of these phases and stages that calls out something deep in me and stirs something deep within me.
So yeah, I wanted to talk through this feeling. I didn't know if I could put words to it, but this was my feeble attempt.
Yesterday I was out in the woods and got to thinking about what it is that stabs me with such joy while I'm sweating in the sweltering 90 degree heat. The conditions at the time were particularly nasty. I had to wear a long sleeve shirt and gloves and long pants which made me feel like I was a wrester cutting weight in a sauna, my eyes were watering because the wind was redirecting the exhaust from the chainsaw up into my eyes, I could feel sawdust in my boots and on my face, in my nose, in my ears and down my back, the sweat was caking the sawdust and dirt all over my body and was dripping off my eyebrow, nose, chin, and earlobes if you can believe it. My clothes were drenched and my body was aching from picking up these massive pieces of oak into the wood cart.
There was one moment when I was rolling these huge chunks of woods to the cart and then bending down to lift them over the sidewalls into the bed of the wagon. After three of them I collapsed to the ground lying flat on my back in utter exhaustion. I still had about 12 more to get and I remember saying to myself, "Just one more, Jay, just one more. You can do this." (I talk to myself in the woods to keep motivated when I just want to pack it in for the day.) I would rouse myself and push myself to the point of a borderline heat stroke...it was insane. I just made sure I had my cell phone in case I fell in a heap and couldn't get back up. My wife would kill me if I did something stupid like that. She knows that I'll work myself into a sickness. A few times I've about passed out in dehydration and heat exhaustion. Her warnings echo in my ears as I push my body to its maximum capacity.
So why do I do this?
I love to work hard. I love physical labor. I love having a goal in mind and pushing myself to accomplish it. There's just something so invigorating about honest toil.
But I think it's something else. I think it makes me feel close to my dad.
This was something we shared together every year of my childhood. We would be in the woods a lot and as my dad would cut down trees, I would drag them out into the open field all lined up in the clearing so we could cut them up next to the same converted old manure spreader that I inherited and use to this day. I remember my dad sharpening his own blades as I hauled loads of wood back to the old woodshed. By the time I would get back, he would have another cache ready for me to load onto the wagon and take back to the cement slab outside the woodshed so that we could split it all in one place with my grandpa's homemade wood splitter that hooked on the back of the 8N Ford tractor PTO. It was quite the cobbled contraption, but it did the job.
So there's just something about being in the woods that brings back all those memories, but more than that, it brings back feelings of closeness with my father. It's when I felt we were equals, a time when we both had something to offer and teamed up to do what we couldn't do alone. I needed his wisdom to run the saw and to do the dangerous stuff in the woods, he needed my young and tireless body to pick up the wood and throw it around. We were an awesome team.
But there's one other things that I crave about the woodcutting experience. The circle of accomplishment that I can actually account for. So much of my job as a pastor is hard to calculate and quantify, but with hauling wood...you can see when you're making progress and you can measure completion. That alone leaves me with a therapeutic feeling.
1. It starts early in the spring where I walk the woods and see what trees are dead wood standing and need to be felled as well as trees and branches that have fallen over the course of the year and need to be harvested.
2. I walk around the woods again and again looking for paths to get to said trees with my tractor and cart so that I can get them out of woods without ruining the beauty of the landscape. I look for open paths in the maze of seedlings, rocks, swamps, and trees to make it deep into hard-to-get places to gather the wood I've cut. There's no use cutting up a tree if I can't get to it.
3. Then, around May, I go get the Bar and Chain oil, I mix the fuel making sure it's the correct ration of oil and gas, I secure a good stock of sharpened blades, I tune up the trusty chainsaw, and head out into the woods to work my plan that I strategized while I walked the woods several times in April.
4. Then comes the day when I grab my chainsaw, my gas, my bar & chain oil and head out into the woods to begin cutting. I'm dressed in the nastiest clothes you ever did see, but this is part of the wild aspect of being a woodsman...you're alone and nobody cares. (except my family who sees me heading out there all scary looking).
5. I begin going crazy with cutting up tree after tree letting the pieces fall to the ground ready to be gathered at a later date. I go through so many chains and so much gas and oil, but I try and stay in that frame of mind. My arms and my lower back smart a little bit, I can feel the burn of certain muscles that don't get worked much. I work my way through the woods taking all the wood that I'd marked out in my mind way back in April.
6. After I've done that, I get the wagon hooked up to the tractor and I start the process of getting to the wood I've cut up so that I can get it out of the woods and into my backyard in large stacks where it awaits the gauntlet of the wood splitter. I love to see these piles growing bigger and bigger with every cart of wood I haul in.
7. When I've accumulated what I believe to be the amount of wood I'll need for the upcoming winter in huge stacks in the backyard, I will call my dad to come over for a couple days to get it all split up with me. He can't move around much these days, but he can pull out a chair and work the lever as I move about the ground like Gollum getting the wood positioned for splitting. We can make light work of a lot of wood in a short time with these new splitters. It's another couple days of pushing my
body to its threshold of endurance, but again, the feeling of accomplishment is palpable. And doing this part with my dad gives me the added boost of adrenaline I need to get 'er done!
8. Then I leave the split wood in piles to dry over the winter. I really should stack it so that it can dry better, but one only has so much time and manpower, so I let it dry right where it sits. I also love to see the huge stacks of split wood on the back edge of my property as I sit on my deck throughout the summer. It's like a king that looks out over his kingdom perched up in his castle in the evening.
9. Around October when it cools down a bit, I gas up the tractor and begin the next phase of wood-gathering. It's time to haul all that split wood up to the house where I stack it with my sons along the right wall inside the garage. This is a part that my boys love to help me out in short spirts. If I tell the that this is something men do, strong me, it keeps them engaged a lot longer. They have the attention span of a puppy, so it takes some tricks to keep them motivated and in motion. There are two rows of wood and these stacks are about 8 foot high and over 20 foot long. A mother load of wood.
10. Then the air chills and snow starts flying and every time I need to get some wood to stoke the fireplace, I walk out into my garage and get an armful that I pack into the inserted wood stove. As I fit the wood in, it's like a game of Tetris. I find a sick joy in getting it just right...hahaha.
11. And then comes the best part. The wood that used to be standing tall in the dense woodland has been repurposed to produced heat for my home. My wife and children gather around the warm fire all winter long. The wood stove becomes the place where my family gathers to laugh, play, talk, cry, tell stories, plan our schedules, and watch television. The wood brings my family together and gives off its one-of-a-kind heat. It turns into energy...isn't that crazy. All the energy I put into it, it turns around and gives back to me. What goes around comes around.
12. Every so often I have to shovel out the ashes that are building up in the stove to make room for the wood to burn efficiently. This is the final stage of the wood's life cycle, and I get to see every part of the cycle making me appreciate it acutely. There is something hallowed about the whole process of burning wood. I feel so connected to the wood at every stage. I feel so grateful to the wood for its contribution to my family. Like a hunter who is grateful to the deer who died to put meat in the freezer for his family, I feel that same honor. I also feel such a surge of accomplishment with every stage of wood cutting, wood gathering, wood splitting, right up to the moment of wood burning. There is something in each of these phases and stages that calls out something deep in me and stirs something deep within me.
So yeah, I wanted to talk through this feeling. I didn't know if I could put words to it, but this was my feeble attempt.
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