skidder trail

Today I didn't see a single logging truck go by the store. Surely, this is the end of winter. All last week and the week before trucks full and empty rumbled down main street. I felt like I got to know them: the red one, the black one, the purple one with "Miss Tracy" airbrushed in gold on the side. (My friend told me it belongs to a guy named Tracy. What would Freud say about that?)

I haven't seen my friends who cut timber in weeks. They have all been as busy as the drivers getting out all the loads they can before the ground thaws to mud and slime and forces you to take a break. In Vermont, most logging takes place in the winter when the ground is frozen and (traditionally) there isn't much else to do. Back in the day, farms milked, hayed and spread manure like crazy all summer and fall, dried the cows off in the winter and cut trees while the ground was frozen solid and covered with slippery protective snow. Then, during the spring thaw, they made syrup before starting all over again.

When I lived in California, most of the logging was done on a massive scale. Entire hillsides were denuded by equipment that would dwarf any skidder I've seen around here. Trucks would go down main street loaded with hard wood logs as wide as I am tall. I didn't have any friends who cut timber. I had friends who spiked it.

But logging as the people I know do it - thoughtfully and thankfully and carefully seems a worthy endeavor. My friend made me realize there is even something good to be said for a skidder trail, although it looks a bit ghastly as well towards the end of its working life. "A horse logging trail disappears shortly after you're done using it, but a skidder trail lets two people walk side by side through the woods."