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Getting Firewood

Thanks to the "generosity" of the National Forest Dis-service, we are "allowed" to go out on our own public land in order to harvest fuelwood for our winter comfort to the tune of $15 per cord. Said permission is given only for those trees that are either standing dead or fallen....no live trees may be cut! No cutting within 1000' of a major creek or river, no cutting within 500' of a seasonal creek. No littering, and no driving off road. Hmm...one set of rules for the common citizen, and another for the timber companies....interesting, that! We must admit: We have speculated on the focus of the Forest Service's interest, as well as into whose pockets money might be flowing, not to mention where it might be flowing from.

OK....enough of that...you either get the picture or you don't.

However, in all fairness, the National Forest Service is also staffed with naturalists, biologists, botanists, geologists, trail-makers, zoologists, mycologists, forest-loverists, campsite maintainists, camper-helperists, et ceterist, et ceterist, and a lot of these people really do love their job (even thought they might have to hold another one to make ends meet), and they deeply care about the land and the waters and the critters and all that, PLUS they care about you, as a visitor and user of their services. It's not these folk that make the decisions to ravage the land and callously strip the beauty from life. To the Forest Service personnel who do it for the love of nature, I salute you and I thank you. To those who can't see beyond the ledgers and the bribes: Phooey! For shame!

Anyway, we need wood, and it's awfully nice of those guys to provide fun roads to drive around on looking for it on! So, I must admit, we might as well have fun doing it. It is a lot of fun....as long as we don't let ourselves get too bummed out by the nasty ugly bits, where the past and present logging operations have left scars on the land, and what basically amounts to body parts that they didn't want lying in heaps to be burned or big burned patches where that has already happened, or the logging operations of the future, where you see suspicious stripes painted on the trees in an otherwise pristine forest surrounded by surveyor's tape.....staking out their victims for the next round....

Now hold on there, pardner! Didn't you just say "Enough of that!"? Why yes, Me, I suppose I did, but that was a whole paragraph ago...now I said my piece, and why don't we just show them folks how much fun we have and some of the good things we get to see when we're out there!

Right....here you go....an ongoing gallery of buses with wood. Firewood, that is. Enjoy!

Here's a short video to give you an idea of the fun process!
* Getting Firewood 320x240, 1:53, 6.94 MB
* Getting Firewood (small), 240x180, 1:53, 3.73 MB

Near Road 54	Fallen red fir	Loading the split rounds	Sierra Buttes view
What Gene will do for Oak	Loaded with oak	Bart and the Buttes	Road 93 blocked by snow
Marmot on Haskell Peak Rd.	Road blocked by tree	Trapped? Bart? Not for long!	Gene saves the day