Notes
from the Countryby Jennifer Larochelle
When we bought our home there was snow on the ground, giving us a picture of the winter landscape. As the snow melted and spring took hold it seemed that new wonders were revealed to us daily. The most magnificent of these was the granite foundation for a barn that once was the centerpiece of our farm. There were priorities to set, however, and though the barn ranked below the wedding, rewiring, insulation, plumbing and walls, Roger and I knew it was only a matter of time. The old stone foundation called to us with each passing day, and as spring faded to summer and summer to fall and the immediate projects got ticked off the list, the barn drew nearer to the top.
As I have often found in my marriage, Roger and I spend a lot of time thinking separately about the same issue or problem. The barn was no different. One winter night I wandered into the kitchen and found Roger drawing plans. We marveled at how parallel our thinking actually was. This seems to happen a lot in our marriage. On one point we differed, and it is this point that has made all the difference in the way I think about our barn. “We’re going to cut our own trees, and mill our own lumber, and we’re going to rebuild that barn,” he said with conviction. Though that was certainly how the original barn had been built it hadn’t occurred to me that we would embark on such an incredible journey. Still, it wasn’t until the first trees were felled that I truly believed that we had begun living our dream.
If you aren’t familiar with life in small-town New England, it is probably important for you to understand at this point how information travels. Knowing what we knew about the barn and our dream of cutting and milling our own trees, the next step was to find someone to help…and the logical place to take that step was at our local village store. Whether the 6:30 crowd that was on their way to work and in a hurry, or the 9:30 crowd that had done their time in the workforce and now liked to swap stories and tales, a well-placed question at the Hebron Village Store could usually illicit an informed answer. Just two years earlier, when I wanted to surprise Roger with a gift of a chainsaw, this is where I went for advice. Another thing that you should know and understand before you ask for local advice is that these are guys who expect follow through; they are deeply invested in your question. In the case of the chainsaw they were more invested than I was, but I understood the importance of reporting back, so I did. The day after we asked, “Do you know anyone who mills lumber?” the answer was given: “David Jaques.” Coincidently we met David at the Village Store just days later. Was this happenstance or destiny?
A cigarette hung loosely from David’s lips. His eyes gazed intently at the task before him. His job was to maximize the yield, to transform the log into lumber. Cut and turn. Cut and turn. Cut and turn. He was masterful at his work. Even the scraps would be utilized: campfire wood bundles for tourists and “stickers” for the next job, and a pile of slabs that to the undiscerning eye were waste, but to the seasoned Yankee represented the heat source for next spring’s maple sugaring. Maximize the yield, minimize the waste.
The first boards were 2x6’s and they brought tears to my eyes . . . This was the beginning. They seemed enormous, but David explained that they were real 2x6’s, not the 1-1/2 by 5-1/2 inch boards the local lumber outlet wants you to believe are 2x6’s. Rather than pull them off the saw carriage, as we had done with the edgings and the slabs, David used the “drag-back” feature to pull them off the end of the mill. “You can do it the hard way,” he exclaimed, “or you can do it the easy way.”
This was David’s mantra and we heard it often. The familiar rumble of his truck marked the beginning of our days, and we were eager as each day began to see his familiar orange wool hat bobbing down toward the mill. In the first few days we discovered a rhythm to the work, and we learned that David’s simple gestures and nods were an extension of his words. A nod could mean leave it [the board] or take it off. His expectation, though never spoken, was that you cared enough to learn the pattern of the work, so words were unnecessary. The pattern was always the same. The hydraulic lift moved the logs from ground to carriage and with unwavering deliberation David’s mind began to work. His experience and his frugal Yankee spirit required that the log be turned and measured and turned again, sometimes in what seemed like an endless cycle to the casual observer, before the first cut was made. Though the desired yield was 2x6’s or 2x12’s, David’s intention was to get every possible board foot out of each log. And that was exactly what he did. And I watched. Brimming with awe I watched.
I marveled at the math being done in David’s head. With time, I began to see the log as David did; with a mathematical eye. “You’re doing so much math in your head. How do you keep everything straight?”
“Everything I use every day I learned in sixth grade science and math,” said David. Both his words and his work were simple and deliberate.
When one cut could yield two boards, sometimes of different dimensions, it was done and this was what sparked my quilters’ eye. I saw in the wood at that moment not the barn or a 2x6, but a new quilt square design: the Sawyer’s Square. I told David of my quilter’s intentions and his appreciation of my mind’s eye was immediate. His first wife Ruth had been a quilter, and he understood and was pleased by the turn my thoughts had taken.
Clear in David’s approach was the value he placed on hard work and practical thinking. The big logs and the crooked ones burned brightest in David’s eyes. They were challenges - the logs that delineated the seasoned sawyer from the one who didn’t care how big the waste pile got. The waste pile was pride’s measuring stick, you see.
Neighbors came regularly in those first few days. They marveled at our spirit and determination and at David’s prowess with the mill. It was on a day with an audience that David lost his first log. It was a “big gun,” and he had explained that the third turn would be the trickiest. “The weight of the log at that point will be away from the turn. If I don’t get it just right it could tip off the carriage.” And tip it did, with a thud that shook the ground and my nerves. A look toward David saw him shrug his shoulders in an “it happens” gesture, and he moved on to the next log. Nothing wasted, especially time.
The romance of the project embraced all who came to see it in action, especially the guys from the store. The stacks of milled lumber grew, each board carefully “sticked” and aligned so as to dry the wood properly, without the threat of ants or mold or rot. At the end of each day a new tally was taken and we relished in the thought that we were one step closer to our dream of building a barn.
When the logs got bigger and the boards they yielded grew heavier, sawhorses were moved in to lessen the lifting necessary before the edging occurred. “You can do it the hard way or the easy way,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. And so we worked day in and day out. And the stacks of lumber got higher. And as the stacks grew and the number of logs to mill shrank we became a family of sorts. A family of circumstance, sharing our lunches and our stories around the picnic table, all working together.
The final day of milling was grueling. The sun rose early and hot and in some ways the romance wore thin. David’s orange wool hat had been replaced with a terrycloth sweatband. At this point each of the logs had to be debarked with the spud before cutting. The small curved tool was effective, but there was no denying the full-body workout of debarking. The kind that left you wondering “Did I really do that?” though the growing pile of bark was clear evidence that you had.
Long days of rain had prolonged our work and our brains were tired too. We didn’t react to the sawing as we had at first. David’s concentration didn’t seem to come as readily. He looked longer at each cut and moved more cautiously with the controls. His “thinking cigarette” hung lower on his lip. The melancholy of the day came not just from nearing the end of a job well done, but from a sense that we would not likely be seeing each other anymore. Sure, we could have Dave’s family over for supper, but that would be different. The work that had bound us together for a short time was ending.
The heat of the day made each board seem heavier than the last. As David and I carried a 2x12 to the pile, I thought surely my body would give way. The pile had grown to shoulder height and David stopped to shift his body so he could lift his end over the top of the pile. I stared at him. He was tired and I knew it. Calling up a little sixth grade science of my own I said, “Just rest your end on the pile.” He stared back and tilted his head in question. With a superhuman effort I lifted my end, and using the edge of the pile as a fulcrum pushed the board which slid across the top of the pile with relative ease. When I reached David’s side I said, “You can do it the hard way, or you can do it the easy way.” And we smiled.
As the heat abated and the sun dipped in the sky, we came to the end of our work. With a toast of cheap champagne, and some photos to record history, we admired the lumberyard we had created. This phase was now complete. We had now only to watch and wait as the breezes and heat of summer dried our lumber and drew us to fall, when lumber would become barn.
* Ed's Note: From Heart of NH Magazine
Eyes of Pride
The Eyes of Pride
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