icon caret-left icon caret-right instagram pinterest linkedin facebook twitter goodreads question-circle facebook circle twitter circle linkedin circle instagram circle goodreads circle pinterest circle

My Weekly Post

Winter's Fire

Farmer Jay has been clearing logs from around the edges of the big field to the southeast of my house. He’s gone back into the cordwood business, he tells me, after a brief hiatus. He did not say why but I assume the favorable price of cordwood might have something to do with it. Cordwood is expensive (I can remember paying $45 a cord, years back, but I’ve heard prices as high as $275 a cord more recently) but there’s a lot of work in it. I don’t think the hourly wage of anyone who cuts cordwood for a living is very high. Plus it’s dangerous work.

So the familiar whine of the chainsaw began. He works alone but within sight of many of my windows so I glance out from time to time, an interesting diorama to watch when I look up from my work. He works with a skidder, cutting the tree first, limbing them and then dragging the trunks across the field, stockpiling them up by the road. Standard logging practice. Looked to me like a lot of maple and ash but I didn’t look too closely. I could see from the fir boughs that were mounting that he was also cutting pine. Though these fields belong to my neighbor, Jay manages them, keeping the edges trimmed and picking up trees that go over in wind and ice. This makes it easier for him to get as much hay as possible from these big and mostly productive meadows. I don’t know of any nicer fields in this town or the next. Aside from the fine horse hay it produces (I am told it is very good quality) and now the harvest of hardwood, these fields provide a great beauty, which is no small product.

He spent several days cutting and I watching. The pine boughs out by the edge of the stone wall were mounting and the day that I wondered what he would do with those also brought my answer. With his skidder, he pushed the boughs into a big high pyramid and lit fire to it. The fields are covered by a very thin blanket of snow. The pile let up a big plume of smoke and for several hours, that was what it was, a green pile with smoke rising from the center. He kept pushing more limbs and branches toward the pire. At one point I walked out to the center of the field to get a closer look. As his yellow growling machine revved and rammed, I could hear the snap of wood, perhaps being broken by the force of the blade or maybe just the heat of fire inside the burning limbs. It sounded like a massive hearthfire, snapping and cracking as flames finally burst freely up through the pile. At moments, it seemed he was driving the skidder right into the fire. I stood in the cold and watched. Dense near the earth but thin above the treetops, the gray tower of smoke rose high into the air, visible, I’m sure, for miles.

The day was ending. After darkness fell, I looked out to see the brush still flaming, a big cozy red circle in the blackness. It was a clear night, stars bright. A satellite drifted silently overhead. I wondered if Jay’s fire was visible from space. The morning brought a snow squall, dusting the fields and every branch. Flames were no longer visible but smoke still moved slowly upward, a lazy climb, like a tired runner. When the workday started, Jay returned. With the blade of his skidder, he scoured the edges of the fields, pushing long branches into the pile. The fire burst up again, muscular and inspired. The smoke regained its ambition, arrowed into the sky. Throughout the day, the tower of brush alternately flamed and smoked, a physical, vocal, theatrical presence in the otherwise still, silent field.

Last night, I could still see a bright pile of embers glowing in the darkness of the night. Today only a wide charred circle in the white field remains, the end of the week’s performance and a mystical footnote: that massive amount of matter, vanished. The long logs piled up by the road have yet to be dealt with.


 Read More 
Post a comment