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Actually the cat has nothing in common with this page. I just liked the idea of using the cat's eyes and what they see and observe.
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Outdoor Stuff | |
| My Ride |
History
Let me talk a bit about the history of woodburning.
Now we each have our own tried and tested methods, tricks and various subtle secrets which we refuse to share when it comes to anything between cutting a tree, perferably a dead one or a windfall, and emptying the ashes accumulated in our stove or fireplace. I will share mine whether you like it or not. (After all it is MY web page isn't it?).
In order to have stored enough knowledge of woodlore, you need many years of trial and error. To begin with a good dad makes a great foundation. My dad's tools were an axe, a cross-cut saw,a 5lb. sledge hammer and two steel wedges. If that didn't work, my uncle John had a 35 lb. Oregon chainsaw, and hands to go with it, which in an emergency could have cut down tall buildings. Wood came from various places and as I learned very early in life, you do not ask questions on the provenance of any wood which might show up in the yard or some secluded lot. My main job was on the bitter end of that cross-cut at the time. Suffice it to say that I graduated from a helper to a logger over the years. True to tradition, my kids do not question the source of any wood which might show up at any time or place, in any weather.
*Important Note: If you ever decide to co-habitate with someone else, it would be to your advantage if she has experience in splitting wood, can drive a tractor and is at ease with a quad and owning her own quad is even better!
Woodlot
| The word ''observation'' and the fashion in which you insert it into your personal
perimeters can be in some cases only a pretext. ''Observation'' is also a
nice word which we may hide behind covering up the real thing, called ''experience
by trial and error''! For instance when I was sawing oak logs with my
father, I observed that if I bent the saw just a bit, he would tire easier.
As you know crosscuts are pulled and not pushed. This was a trial and an
error. He too had been twelve years old at one time and tried the same
stunt on his father and older brother. My error.
Being curious and also observant and not ashamed to admit that I tried to split an 18'' dia. elm log, I have found a pretty good recipe to make splitting fun. Most of this came from my podnah of over a quarter century and my dad. There are good splitters and bad splitters. Maple, except silver maple, ash, white, grey and yellow birch, beech, and aspen are good ones. Bad ones are apple, ironwood, and really bad ones are elm, poplar and silver maple. Any logs with knots can test your tenacity. I am, as we say in French, preaching for my parish as I much rather prefer splitting by hand than using a gas-powered splitter. Don't forget that good wood heats four times, when you cut it, when you split it, when you stack it and when you burn it. To begin with you need a good axe with a fairly long handle. Those axes that they sell with ''ears'' on them are not worth a fart in a windstorm. They are good only for men with big arms, hard heads and who think that the bigger the log, the hotter the fire. They spit on their hands, rub them together and find a comfortable stance as though they were a designated hitter, then with a mighty swing they plant it in the middle of the log. Three things may happen. The axe may bounce back and nearly hit them in the forehead, the axe might make a dent or, if the wood is dry and the log is the size of a stovepipe both halves will fly into the next county. The bark of a tree serves as skin, or as in a log, a belt. In order to split it, you have to disengage the bark or the skin. To do this you knock off a sliver, say 3'' at its thickest point. Now the belt is broken and the wood will bend easier. ''Read'' the log before splitting. Choose a nice even side with no knots or bumps, then you can check for discolorations. These indicate either humidity and/or a fault in the wood. There might even be a crooked crack...follow it. This is a ''road'' and gives you the natural sense in which to split, not going ''against'' the log. Always split a log with the knot as far down as possible. Turn the wood over if you have a knot near the top. This procedure will preserve your state of grace, or what remains of it. How you shape your cuts depends on how you shape your wood. I will knock off slivers and then cut the in square pieces. The reasoning is that firstly it cords better, then if you criss-cross your wood in the stove ,you get a much hotter fire. The downside is that when you stack wood you always place your piece of wood so as the bark will be on top. This serves as a protection from rain and snow. The square pieces have no bark, hence you have to hide them. I also make up a stock of what I call ''all nighters''. These are large knotty logs which cannot be split. Toss one in before retiring. A note on stacking. The best friend a cord of wood can have is the wind. Wind is the best offering Nature can give you to dry your wood. Never cover completely your stack, it will rot before your eyes. **Important useless information: If your conjoint is in charge of the wheelbarrow that day, do not overload it. Better she make a few more trips than you burn her up and she cannot make supper. Dried white birch bark ( paper bark) is the greatest starter you can find. Be a bit lenient on its use as it burns hot and fast. Don't peel trees to get it, use what you find laying around. Dried potato skins are excellent for eliminating creosote in your chimney. To sweep your chimney, you can cut a small evergreen and run a rope down the chimney, tie the end to the trunk of the evergreen and pull it up the chimney. You can see creosote when you sweep. Take a handful and whatever shines, is creosote. (My dad's trick). Here is a method I call the ''St. Romuald'' method, only because I have never seen it anyplace else but I am sure it exists. Okay, you plant your axe FIRMLY in the middle of a log and it does not split. You then raise the axe with the log over your head and turn it so as the axe in beneath the log and then slam it down on your splitting log. The axe serves as a wedge and in most cases drives right through the log. Always have a six-pack on hand, you never know who might drop by. Always fill you conjoint's quad with gas after a session of logging. Do not let your conjoint split more than two cord without a break, after all he or she is not a mule. And with this, my recipe on preparing firewood, I leave you with I hope a few new tricks which you can add to your own bag. Please feel free to share your observations with me. I gladly accept handouts of this nature.
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ahAh man, this is outdoors at its best.
André's Camp on Poliquin Lake
Rivière-à-Pierre, Québec.
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André is my podnah, my mentor and we have been running together for over a quarter century. If I needed a living example of outdoors I would chose him and his brother Paul. They would catch a trout, open it up, see what it bit on and Paul would make a fly. They were fishermen, hunters, trappers and...well yes, poachers...a bit, mebbe. Now there are people who earn their living poaching and there are people who poach to live. This family did not get to the butcher shop every week. You needed money to do that. |
If you are going for CRANBERRIES
You might see BEAR TRACKS
Amongst the BLUEBERRIES
Cranberries |
Bear Tracks
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Blueberries |
Let's see now. The Outdoors. H-mmm. My outdoors begins with my favourite pair of jeans, my ''woods'' coat, a pair of old gloves, a carefully selected baseball cap and my boots of that day. I own more boots than shoes.
The Outdoors teaches us the art of observation from our personal window. It tries to tell us of solitude and the good harvested from sitting on a rock and watching nothing, hearing nothing and still being able to enrich our lives at that moment in life. To hear the silence is an accomplishment not common to the ordinary human being. To be a witness of the soaring birds of prey and their gracefulness and ability to make us envy their gift of flight. To smell the first scents of thawing pine in late January . To lay down next to rapids and let sleep over shadow the sound of rushing waters. All these are free to me and are my outdoors. No I carry no weapon, I do carry a knife but only because I have always carried a knife rather than a wristwatch.
What we call a ''snare run'' for rabbits in early winter and a place in the alders to set snares for partridge for a holiday meal of partridge stuffed with cabbage is the way I understand what Nature has offered us. A trout line run out of boat while dozing after a light lunch of berries and cornbread and spring water......Hey, as David Alan Coe says in one of his songs, ''If that ain't country I'll kiss your.......''.
Something very haunting draws my podnah and myself into the woods in late March. The smell of spring, although very very faint and the thoughts of the long ago sounds of maples drip-dripping into buckets. Once you have tapped, you will be back, drawn like magnet back to where you have spent other times boilin' down, the steam gushing out of the sugar cabin, long hours and hard work and these times have become as permanent in your mind as a tattoo on a sailor's arm.
After building a fire in the snow, we'd check our snares and run a wire across the fire hole and string pieces of rabbit and let them cook. There would be a chest-pocket warmed beer ready to help us through the hare, while sitting on a log and not saying a word, but enjoying those minutes of silent communication between us, Nature and a half dozen deer that are surely on the ridge in the cedars watching us.
''If that ain't country, I'll kiss your...........''
