I know, it’s not fall yet but it is already in the air. The weather has been keeping me a little on edge all summer. It’s been cooler overall and definitely more moisture through0ut than we have seen in recent years. Between fishing and getting some house projects out of the way one chore has been trying to surface every time a chilly wind blows in and that’s the woodcutting. I usually reserve this annual rite till September but I started today and the cool clear air in the higher country only made it seem more fitting.
Wood is getting harder to come by these days. Wood harvest is not leaving much behind for the wood cutters anymore, more people are burning wood and large tracts of potential fuel are locked up behind gates in environmental stalemate. Large areas of bug kill are tied up in red tape until lightning strikes and the countryside is turned to ashes, whats left is given out as salvage logging contracts and what’s left after that (two or three years later) is finally given up to wood cutters.
Forest after a fire, Montana
It is an odd form of logic. I’m no expert on the subject but it looks like there is a lot of difference between some kind of harvest before a fire than there is after one.
So today I set out to cut wood on a burn that was opened this summer after the salvage logging was completed only to find that the roads in were closed to the public for yet another “stimulus” national forest road project which the area seems to be rife with at the moment. I wish they would have told me that at the forest service office where I bought my woodcutting permit after assuring me the area was open to wood cutting.
I ended up in area that I cut in years ago that hardly has a dead stick anywhere but I managed to scrabble together a decent load. It was a beautiful day, the air was cleaned out by rainstorms yesterday and the breeze definitely had the aforementioned feel of fall in it. Missing was my dog, my numero uno woodcutting buddy for the last several years. When the wood load was on he had to ride shotgun (which he hated-life was much more interesting from the back of the truck ). That seat was glaringly empty today.
Wild Raspberry, Montana
The high note of the day besides the weather and my eventual wood gathering success was stumbling into a patch of wild raspberries. It’s been a long time since I’ve run into this little wild delicacy. They were a bit past prime and the wind was shaking many of the last of the ripe ones to the ground. I spent an hour in the berry patchs foraging around like some misshapen form of the family Ursidae. Earlier in the day I also spent a few minutes on a side trip to clean up the remains of a huckleberry patch but the raspberries were a fine change to the inauguration of the fall rites.
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