Some history

I think most of you know about this but some I am sure do not. The easiest way to describe my occupation is to simply say I am a logger. This picture is from a job I did in Ardmore, TN. It is a large red oak in a 16 acre swamp. I cut it around the second week of July 2008. It was incredibly hot that day. This tree is actually not that big compared to many others. I will try to dig up some pics of trees I cut that were over 7 feet across the stump. Most folks have no idea that these trees are all over the place here. Oh well, sorry tree huggers, y'all know what to do! So I am a logger. That really is the bulk of what I do but not nearly what I have done or can do. So here is a scratch on the surface of my life. I grew up on a farm basically. Before I turned 6 years old we did live on a military base so I barely have a claim to that life. My father retired from the USMC back in 1978. We left Camp Pendleton with four of us kids still living at home and a six horse trailer full of horses and other stuff. The Oceanside area of CA is very arid. There is lots of gritty soil and dry grass. I suppose it is good for something but I don't know what. lol When we got to TN on August 5th 1978 we unloaded the horses. You should have seen how they went nuts. They had never seen such green pastures and foliage galore. They ran and ran and then ran some more. When they got done with that they turned around and pranced for a good long while. That day I learned what a happy horse looked like. California must be like prison camp to them.

So here we were, suddenly becoming farmers. Not that we didn't know anything about horses, just that we kept them at the stables in CA. It's a lot different than actually doing all the farm related work. I can't say what it might be like farming in CA but I can tell you that it didn't take long to both dread and to appreciate this style of existence. Our farm which, I still live on, is about five miles from the nearest store and about 25 miles from the nearest town of any size. In my opinion we aren't far enough out in the boonies. City folks are always getting on my nerves out here. Trouble is that it is getting worse every passing year. They dump animals and trash out here. They pay WAY too much for the land and then still try to act like they know anything more than the nearest stump. The punk kids come out to take a swipe at being country. They fail miserably with loud exhaust and booming stereos. Then they go into the neighbors hay fields and tear them up slinging mud during the rainy winters. What a bunch of government educated morons. Anyways, I learned early about digging fence post holes and breaking the ever present rocks up in the hole to make it deeper. I remember the first time I ever saw a bush hog sling a rock. Damn that hurt. I had no clue what was coming through the high grass like a bullet. Wouldn't have mattered because I didn't have time to do anything about it. It took me a few minutes to get myself together after that.

Back when I was a teen there wasn't much way to make any cash. I worked on neighbors farms. The work varied from building and mending fences to worming animals or running equipment. Eventually I followed my brothers into the woods to cut firewood. Turned out to be the one thing I could make real cash at and get a heck of a workout at the same time. I bought my first car by cutting firewood. It was a 1965 Buick Wildcat convertible. What a sweet ride it was. Oh well, maybe one day I will restore it. When I win the lottery like everything else. I did manage to do other jobs. My first job working for someone else as a regular employee was teaching dance. Crazy huh? I answered an ad looking for ballroom dance instructors. They said they would train me so off I went working most early evenings at a dance studio. Was funny because I would dress in a suit, drive an old truck loaded with firewood to town, teach a few hours, and then go deliver firewood. I dunno, it just worked. I continued to teach dance here and there for a few years after that but by now it has been too long. I also worked in a small kiddy park with rides etc, drove a limo a little bit, worked in purchasing for an electronics contractor, and various other manufacturing jobs. I tried quite a few different types of work but through it all I still cut firewood. With my desire to be my own boss, and all the time I spent in the woods it was a natural gravitation to become a timber harvester. There are a lot of reasons I continue to do it even though there really isn't much money in it. There are many more reasons to quit but all of those reasons do not add up to the reasons I'd quit most anything else. It is never the job really, it's the people. Seeing how a rather large percentage of the population sucks, I am happy to be out there, mostly alone with the trees, animals, bugs etc. We all have a clear understanding of each other! lol People flip flop and back stab whereas all these other environmental factors are ever dependable. Except maybe the weather. It can suck too! I have just generally explained some of my perspective. There is a lot of other things that happened along the way. I am sure I will fill in the blanks over time. I plan on sharing some events from our own funny farm back in the day. You'll love it, trust me.