Who would believe me if I said I have been busy?
This past weekend I spent clearing trails at a friend’s place. He owns a fairly large chunk of land and although the trails are already there, they are severely overgrown. So much so that trees of logging size need to be removed. He and another friend drove their tractors to haul out the logs while I cut. I know it sounds as though I may have had the harder job, but because the trails were so wet, it wasn’t long before both tractors were buried to the axles. Once a 13- and 15-ton, four wheel drive tractor is stuck, cutting down trees and brush seems a walk in the park comparatively. All was going well, too: I had my job to do and was making good progress, and usually when one tractor was stuck the other was free to pull it out. Then, when I lost the trail, I went back to get the landowner so he could show me. Since he wasn’t around, my other friend, who knew where the trail was supposed to go, came with me to show me. We walked a ways in along what I had cut until we came to where I lost the trail. After a short walk, we found the trail again and traced it back to where I had stopped cutting. It seemed as though two rather large Jack pines would have to come out. I was doing my best to make sure that the trees fell in such a way (about 60 degrees to the direction of hauling) as to make hooking them up and dragging them out easier. One tree seemed to have a bit of a lean to the wrong side, but I thought I could deal with it with very little problems. The second tree had a definite lean to the wrong side, but was a bit smaller, so I figured that if the first one fell the right way then this one should too. I was right: the first tree fell with no problems at all and scarcely a push from me, so I proceeded to cut my notch into the second one. I had the notch cut and was in the process of doing my back cut when the tree leaned ever so imperceptibly on my chainsaw bar. Had the tree been perfectly vertical, it should have started to fall the right way. But, it wasn’t perfectly vertical, so it pinched my saw. Normally, I carry a wedge that helps encourage a tree to fall in the intended direction and is made for precisely this situation. I checked my pockets but it wasn’t there; I’d have felt it all along, anyway, and would have used it sooner if it was with me. Being fairly certain that it was in my tool kit, I walked two miles back to where I’d left my gas, oil and tool kit, leaving my saw stuck in the tree. The wedge wasn’t there, either. Having no other options, then, I tried to find a suitable stick that would serve as a push-pole giving me leverage by pushing from as high up on the tree as I could reach. No such stick existed. I mean, there were plenty of small, perfectly sized trees around, but without a saw to cut them, they were useless. I looked all over and finally found a dead tree limb that seemed to be what I was looking for, so I thought I’d give it a try. I got two pushes in and it snapped sending me on an uncontrolled running stumble toward the tree I was pushing. I succeeded in stopping just short of head-butting the tree. Frustrated, I walked back out again, hoping that one of my friends would be around to either lend me their saw or come and help push. Another two-mile walk for nothing: nobody was around. So, back I go again, this time with a good, solid maple stem to push with. I don’t think I have to say it didn’t work, either. Even more frustrated, I decided to take pictures of my ineptness and don’t for a minute think that the irony of my having a camera and not a wedge escaped me. My last two-mile walk found my one friend close by, so he came with his saw and helped me remove my saw. (even if I could have pulled the saw out myself, I knew better – it was keeping the tree from falling backwards.) At this point, I still thought a successful fall was possible, but it was late in the day and I was mad, so I dropped the tree across the trail and stomped of through the bush. I hate being rusty.
My saw, stuck in the back cut.
The bastard tree my saw was stuck in. Sheesh!
Last weekend Jenn and I attended the Ontario Federation of Sleddog Sports annual general meeting. Among other things, we discussed the upcoming symposium. Lance Mackey of the back to back Yukon Quest and Iditarod victories fame will be the key-note speaker. This should be interesting because however nice a guy Mr. Lance might be, I don’t anticipate getting any groundbreaking information from him. These champion musher-types are a guarded bunch but their avid followers – groupies, if you like – lap up whatever information is ladled out. If Lance says that he fed nothing but bananas to his dogs and they’re all called Shirley you can bet that the dog lot at races will be littered with fresh banana peels and everybody will be giving commands like: “Okay, Shirley, let’s go!” I don’t mean to sound cynical; in fact, I’m looking forward to seeing Lance and hearing what he has to say, I just don’t think that there is ‘one’ answer for doing well at this sport and what works for Lance, Hans or anybody else may not work for anyone else.
The update on Gilligan the new guy is that he’s adjusted rather well. He spends a lot of his time at the edge of the bunny pen or rounding up the chickens. He’s also a really well behaved dog in the car but doesn’t like being in the back of the truck so much.
The stare-down. I’m not sure who blinked first.
His obsession with a tight ball of chickens borders on a mania.
Seriously. A mania.
Filed under: 1 | Tagged: chainsaw, Lance Mackey, Ontario Federation of Sleddog Sports
Ah that BC/chicken mania. I know it well, lol! My Storm loves his chickens. Here he is insisting that one is in the wrong place when she ducked into an empty hay shed http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/silhouettestable/2008_0430dogs0069.jpg
And how many BC’s does it take to herd a rooster?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/silhouettestable/2008_0430dogs0083.jpg
Sorry to hear about your chainsaw troubles. That’s why I don’t dare touch one! I’d like to get some more trails cleared at my place too, but I’ll wait until my husband has time to do the cutting for me.
Holy crap that Lance comment had me spewing out my coffee!! You are totally cynical, but it’s also ABSOLUTELY true!!! God, I want to print that up and hand it out to every musher I see.
Now I gotta go buy some bananas! LOL!!
I’m sure you were at the same symposium I was, where Paul asked Hans G about the ‘magic kibbles.’
Sorry about the coffee…
magic kibbles?
Yeah… Mr. G claimed that all he fed on the Quest was Eagle Ultra and that he poured it on the snow, even, at checkpoints. He’d give the dogs water an hour before leaving and that was it. Of course, this was as the Head Vet-in-charge-of-Eagle’s-food was standing behind him. Paul finally pressed Mr. G about the ‘magic kibbles’ being able to completely sustain a dog team on the Quest and G somewhat relented and said he ’snacked’ the dogs with meat, too. I stand by what I said: those mushers are a guarded bunch.
Ha, ha, I know I was at a different symposium, but I too heard Hans talk about feeding nothing but Eagle Ultra in the checkpoints and only using meat to snack on the trail. Well, there aren’t many checkpoints in the Quest, so it sounds like he fed mostly meat during the race, ha, ha.
You might be pleasantly surprised by Lance. I heard him speak in 2005, and the only “groundbreaking information” he gave out was that spending time with your dogs is always worthwhile. He said he likes to sit in his dogyard and just watch his dogs or even sit on a doghouse and read a book just to be with them. But hey, maybe spending time with your dogs “may not work for anyone else” .
Hi Janet,
I don’t mean to run down Lance; I expect he’s a very knowledgeable musher. It’s just that between the so-called big name mushers, not much in the way of good, guiding information trickles down to the average or aspiring racer, much less the general mushing public. With Hans guarded about his feeding, Kleedhan, who is always running the worst team ever until the day of the race when the dogs seem to have magically improved overnight, or every other musher that claims their success is mostly due to genetics (so buy my second string team and ignore that Schandelmier guy) it’s difficult to expect anything ‘groundbreaking.’
I’m looking forward to Lance’s talk. I even plan to give it my utmost attention, but I’m taking a lot of what I expect he’ll say with a grain of salt. Most of us, I’m sure, would love to park ourselves in the dogyard and read a book or watch them, but when we don’t make a living from the dogs, some of our time needs to be spent elsewhere. I also don’t imagine that sitting on a dog’s house, reading, won Lance the Quest. Or the Iditarod.