The Reluctant Gardener Sings the Lumberjack Blues

Spring is my wife’s favorite season. Her gardens are coming to life. Unfortunately, this phenomenon aligns with the maximum amount of labor intensive yard work. There’s the endless clearing of winter’s debris – raking the leaves, picking stones from the grass, and this year, due to the snow and howling winds, an unprecedented amount of broken branches. These nor’easters added a new item to my outdoor-work-related-resume: lumberjacking.

Now, I come from a family of farm workers so the garden stuff, I take in stride. But trees? Not in the desert. Any tree expertise I inherited would have come from my father who was in the Civilian Conservation Corps, but that was planting trees, not cutting them down.

I did the best I could. As a teacher, I take every opportunity to make whatever disaster befalls a learning opportunity. First I surveyed the damages; they were considerable.  An enormous limb from a white pine felled on one side of our stonewall, an enormous oak tree branch on the other. A cherry tree completely uprooted at our property’s border. Half of the crab apple’s branches were ripped from its trunk in front of the house, and in the back yard, a very large branch from the paper birch. We were not alone. The whole neighborhood was littered with the spoils of snowstorms with some trees totally demolished. I noticed that many of the branches on my neighbor’s apple trees were dangling from wooden threads, needing to be cut. Ah, yes, cut.

I am a dinosaur. I have access only to an ax and a varied collection of saws. I know I could have borrowed, or rented, a chain saw, but manual use is mental and physical therapy. Mentally, I’m sure you’re thinking because I must be nuts not to consider a chain saw. Physical therapy for my right arm which is still recuperating and strengthening from an elbow that was obliterated a couple of years ago when I slipped on ice while, yes, hauling wood. I don’t even have the right outfit. I do not own a single flannel shirt, a watchman’s cap, suspenders, or anything plaid.

Nonetheless, I plotted my attack. As with other projects involving wood, such as campfires, start small and build is my philosophy. The small stuff was from the crab apple. A lot of small stuff – nine piles of twigs. Our yard looks as though we’re preparing to host lots of campers. The problem with removing the large branches tethered to the tree was the angle of the ax’s impact, a challenge I could not refuse. Once removed, the crab apple was reduced to half its girth; the branches will burn in the fireplace next winter. The pine limb, though large, was easy to cut for campfire use this summer. The oak branch I cut into several small logs and left them to season at the foot of the wall. The paper birch is light and easy to cut. Its twigs went to the fire pit, the large logs hauled away for next winter’s woodstove.

The cherry was another matter. The whole tree had uprooted. I started with the branches I could easily access with my saws, piece by piece, section by section, until it was time to practice my lumber jack skills. There’s a lot of work to this lumberjacking business. I knew to cut at angles and from different sides. This side, now that side, this side, that side. It becomes a mantra of sorts. Once the whole tree was down, I cut it into manageable logs left at the woodland edge to cure for next year.

Cutting is only half of the lumberjacking business; hauling is the other half. The crab apple’s larger branches couldn’t remain in the front yard and were too cumbersome to cart away whole. I realized I would have to cut the branches into smaller chunks. This is when I saw my brother-in-law walking his dog in our yard. Ambrose is not a small dog. He’s a St. Bernard. Basically, a small pony. Hmm…remember the movie “Dances with Wolves” when Lt. Dunbar used his horse Cisco to move all the debris from his water supply? Yes, I admit I envisioned myself harnessing Ambrose and hauling the wood to its resting place. Just a fantasy, however; I eventually chopped it up and hauled it away on my own. But I did continue to daydream about all the wood I could have harvested from the neighborhood if Ambrose had been amenable to the job.

There’s great satisfaction in completion.  Along with the benefit of knowing that everything – the twigs for the campfire, the logs for the woodstove, the chips for mulching – can be used. No, I haven’t forgotten about those apple trees. I’ll help in their harvesting. Apple wood is great for smoking, especially green apple wood. There’s enough to keep a smoking barbecue for years to come in both yards. But lumberjacks can keep their jobs. I don’t think I would ever consider this as a post retirement career. I’ll stick with raking.

And advice for all you non-gardeners: when your better half starts thinking about gardening, prepare yourself with a diversionary tactic – a meal at a nice restaurant, a weekend in the city, a romantic vacation to some far away paradise. Do whatever you can to throw them off the idea. Gardens are like rabbits; they multiply quickly, and before you know it, my friend, you may become that reluctant gardener, that lumberjack, or that St. Bernard.

Juan Arriola