I'm a LumberJill and I'm Okay
I suppose it was a fantasy thought I had when we first started all this. A crazy thought perhaps, that with all the woods around us, people would be more than happy to bring us logs that we would pay top prices for. As I said, a fantasy thought.
Seems most people aren't willing to do that kind of hard work. Now mind you, they were more than willing to let us come cut down their trees, provided we were still willing to pay top dollar for them. Get Real, folks.
If we are going to pay almost unheard of prices for logs, there was no way we were going to a: come cut them down, b: clean up the debris and c: pay more money than we could make back on the boards. Sorry, that line of thinking is even crazier than mine.
The fact remained tho, that if we wanted logs, we would have to acquire them ourselves. As I said, not many people are willing to work that hard anymore. After many, many phone calls, we found a man that seemed to understand our plight. After looking at his woods, we came to an agreement. A fair price for his trees and the ability to log as little or as much as was needed at the given time.
So now, while we may not be 'professional loggers', Kevin and I are indeed in the logging business. Over the weekend, we procured our first logs. And they are beauties. We even brought home a stump that was so fantastic we couldn't leave it behind.
Now I have to admit, logging cedar IS hard work. Especially in the ninety degree heat that is visiting our neck of the woods right now. We allow ourselves about six hours to cut, clean up and load the trees we cut down. At the end of the day, both of us are hot, dirty and sweaty.
The other thing is, at the end of the day, we look at the logs laying in our woodyard and we both know it was all worth it. Each tree represented was hand picked by us, each tree taken promotes the health of the forest that remains.
Being a lumberjill is by far the hardest physical work I've ever done, but by the same token, even with my sunburned shoulders and aching muscles, I know that what we will produce from those logs will be a thing of beauty. That is enough.
So to rewrite Monty Python: I'm a LumberJill and I'm Okay.
