My friend, Deep Green, gathers firewood -OR- Getting Away From It All Ain't For Sissies.

From time to time, Deep Green recounts a little adventure in his back to nature life.

He tells great stories. His yarns are wonder filled. The recaps of his exploits and routine, mundane chores can make almost anyone feel better about living in civilization. Better him than me?

For BustedKnuckles and the rest of the weaning off the grid gang, I proudly present
DEEP GREEN- A Day in the Life

"The Chinese engine on my American wood splitter refused to start the other day.
It's less than a year old. I assume the fact that it had been sitting out in the
middle of the barn lot, uncovered, in a twenty-five degree below zero wind chill
might have had something to do with that.

The next day I bought a heat lamp, one of those big cheap round things with a
springy clip on one end. I also bought two heat lamp bulbs, since Mal-Wart did
not see to throw one in with the lamp. I got everything set up, extension cords
ran, the light on, and the whole shebang covered with a nice tarp. I left the
heat lamp on overnight.

The next morning the news said it was going to rain any moment, in fact it was
past due, so I unplugged everything and left it sit. I hadn't cut any wood
anyway and didn't have anything to split.

We ran on the gas furnace for two days while it rained. I probably could have
started the thing then, but I'd be fighting mud as much as I would wood if I'd
tried to cut and split any.

Last night it froze again and this morning warmed up suddenly. There was a
pea-soup fog outside when I got up. Visibility was around 1/8 mile or less. A
wonderful late December day. I LIKE fogs. It means it's phenomenally warm, for
one thing, and I just like them for the looks of the things--so long as I'm not
driving.

I truly love being out there in any weather conditions, at any season, and at
any time of the day or night. I'm thankful I found this place. It's home now, my
real home. It feels right here. And fog or no, I was going to make one enormous
pile of firewood today.

When I unwrapped the carefully-tucked in engine and heat lamp, I saw that the
clamp came loose and the lamp had fallen onto the tarp. That area of the tarp
was in a slight depression in the ground and water had collected around the
lamp, cord, and bulb. It was all frozen into kind of a flat block. I carefully
loosened it from the tarp and carried the whole frozen contraption into the barn
to allow it to thaw out and dry. It will probably explode the second I plug it
in next time.

The Chinese engine fired into life as if nothing had ever been wrong with it. I
had an elm log dragged up and I cut it into stove lengths, allowing the splitter
to warm up well while I did so. I obliterated that log in no time flat and used
my giant two-wheeled wheelbarrow to bring it into the basement in a mere three
trips. Then it was off to the tractor to drag up another one.

I have several logs already dragged out of the woods and "staged" in the barn
lot so I can get to them easier in the event of a heavy snow. I pulled up a
sassafras tree about eighteen inches in diameter and hoped that it was cured. We
had several go down during the hellacious storms early this summer. I kinda
sorta got 'em mixed up and I forgot which ones had cured, being dead for a year
or two, and which ones were "green", having only gone down a few months ago.
Sassafras will burn either way, but it makes for a sorry fire if they're green.

Anyhow, I cut the thing up and put the saw away, restarting the splitter. I
lifted a chunk of it, hoping I could tell from its weight if it was green or
not. Couldn't do it. It felt kind of borderline. Green wood is much heavier than
cured wood, simply because all the sap has evaporated and/or leaked out.
Whatever. I began splitting it.

When the wood pile was higher than the splitter and the stove sized logs were
actually getting in my way, I stopped the splitter. Hmmm. This was a helluva lot
of wood. Too much for the wheelbarrow. I fired up the Mule, attached a wagon
behind it, and loaded it. Then came my first bad surprise for the day.

The Mule would not go into four wheel drive. It was locked in two wheel drive. I
fiddled with it a bit, but didn't force it lest I really break something. Now
another problem came up. Would the Mule pull the wagon out of all the mud I'd
stomped up around the area? As the ground thawed, dragging whole trees, marching
back and forth, tossing logs about, and driving the tractor had stirred up a sea
of mud. I was mud from head to toe, having slipped in it a few times, but that
didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I might have a fully loaded wagon
full of split wood and not be able to move it with the Mule.

Only one way to find out...

The first five feet was touch and go, but once the rear tires bit into the
gravel on the drive around the barn it sallied forth handsomely, as the Brits
would say. I also knew it wouldn't do it twice.

Oh, well. It will either rain and make things worse, or it will stay dry and
eventually all turn back into dirt, or it will freeze as solid as granite.
Whatever happens, I still have the giant wheel barrow, my 4x4 truck, the
tractor, and various and divers ways of moving things that do not want to move
through mud.

What to do now?

I'd cut a really great dead elm tree down last fall. It was far back in the rear
field at the edge of the woods. The base of the tree was well below the level of
the field, down into the woods, but it was so tall that when I cut it the top
fell out into the field, an easy snatch. Elm burns hot and long, excellent
firewood. I fueled and oiled the big chain saw, tossed it into the scoop of the
tractor, and went to whack off about a third of the thing and drag it up to cut.
The entire tree was too much for my tractor to even budge. I knew because I
tried it a couple of months ago. It's an uphill drag and a huge tree. No
problem, I'd just cut it into thirds and not worry about it.

You must remember my 1957 Ford tractor does not have any brakes. Well, it has
them. They just don't work. To approach this tree, I slowly backed directly into
it, using the tree itself as a chock for my rear tires. This would keep me from
making a fast and nasty trip to the bottom going backwards on a tractor. You
can't jump clear when it's going backwards. I tried once. Only ridiculous luck
saved me. Dropping the scoop as an anchor works only when going forward. The
rear of the scoop is curved and merely slides along the ground like a sled, not
nearly enough drag to even slow the thing down.

The slope wasn't steep. Twenty feet farther and it began to drop off much more
rapidly. With the rear tires secured against the tree, the scoop down, and the
tractor idling, I hopped off and fired up the big saw. It was just starting to
get dark, the fog was rolling along about waist-high (a great horror movie fog)
and I stood there looking at the big elm. I decided to cut it just below where
it had branched out into three large sections, each of them as big around as my
waist. This would leave two-thirds of the log to retrieve later and give me all
the wood I wanted to deal with tonight.

I laid into it, the big saw roaring. The area of the tree where I was cutting it
was probably two and a half feet in diameter. The dust and wood chips built up
quickly on my muddy clothes, making me look like some kind of wooden statue. I
was using a "chisel blade" chain on the saw, one that cuts very aggressively but
also carries a greater risk of kick-back. You're always careful with them.

In a couple of minutes I was nearly through. The big tree creaked and sagged,
settling where it was about to part. Suddenly I was through. The saw bar dropped
quickly and I pulled back just as quickly, so the teeth on the chain would not
dig into the ground and dull themselves.

Ta-da! Nothin' to it! Then...

Something very strange happened. Through the darkness and the fog, it seemed as
though the larger part of the log...moved.

It did! And it was moving faster! The damned thing was sliding back down the
hill, picking up speed every second. I couldn't believe it! Here I'd felled the
thing perfectly, allowing me easy access to the entire tree, and now it was
headed for the foggy, dark, unseen bottom of the woods! In less time that it
takes to tell, the log was sliding straight back and down like a rocket,
crashing saplings, knocking smaller trees over, throwing aside woodland debris
and dead branches. And even now I don't know which made more noise, the runaway
tree sliding down through the darkness like a juggernaut, or me, cursing and
bellowing at the thing at the top of my lungs. It was all over in less than ten
seconds.

It was good that there wasn't a single living soul around me for over a half-mile. Oh, I cursed. I drew upon a
lifetime of profanity and roared it down into the fog and the dark. Had the
woods been dry, I'd have started a fire. I just know it. After taking a huge
breath I was about to start all over again when a thought came to mind that shut
me up instantly.

If THAT piece could slide...

And the OTHER piece, also on wet ground, was holding the tractor...

And I was behind them both...

I just sprang with both legs, landing squarely on my arse about five feet away,
the chain saw (still running) landing a bit farther. I was ready to do some
serious moving when I realized the upper log hadn't moved a bit. The large,
crooked branches were dug into the ground securing it like a bank safe.

Well. Now I had a lost log, it was dark, my butt was sore as hell, and I had no
idea if I could move the tractor without setting off an evil chain reaction that
would land me next to the first log, or under it. Or the second one. Or the
tractor.

I shut off the saw and slipped the protective cover over the chain and bar. I
went all around the remaining log, assuring myself that it was indeed stuck well
into the earth. Well, it seemed to be. I might as well find out, I figured.

I climbed atop the tractor and started the engine. My plan was to pull away
about twenty feet onto more level ground, then run a chain back and wrestle the
elm branches (still connected to each other) away from the side of the hill.
This would make things safer, and I'm a stickler for safety.

The tractor went forward about six inches and began sliding backwards. The earth
had thawed completely under the tires. I eased her back, put it in forward gear
again, and let off the clutch. This time the tractor moved a little, then slid
back into the tree with greater force. I was about to try a third time when it
dawned on me that all I was doing was knocking my safety net--the elm tree
top--farther backwards every time it hit it. Gee...maybe I'd better not do that
again.

So, it's ten o'clock at night, the tractor is still back there somewhere, either
on top of the hill where I abandoned it or tangled up in elm splinters at the
bottom of a black and foggy ravine. I carried the big saw back, noting that it
was heavier than I thought, and came in the basement garage door, mud, sawdust,
and woodchips from soaked top to dripping bottom.

Just another day on the ranch, folks. Nothing new going on around here."