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9 | (continued) The regular collection of firewood inevitably became a chore, but it was indispensable, so I approached it methodically. The fuel I burned regularly consisted of the dead, dry lower branches of one particular species of conifer, fairly abundant in all directions from the tent. If I were as much a naturalist as a camper, I could name the species, but I’m not even sure if it was a pine or a spruce. The branches I used had died merely because the trees had outgrown them. The process is called natural defoliation, and the removal of the branches has no effect upon the trees. The forest floor loses a small amount of humus, true, but that was another reason I only lit the fire on alternate days, and always used the charcoal from the previous fire as part of the fuel for the fresh one. I also saved on tinder by squirting the charcoal and fresh wood with varsol before tossing a match into it. For the learner: this latter technique is obviously effective, and legal, but as you can well imagine, it can also be very dangerous—you must use it with caution, especially if you’re alone. Assuming the fireplace is safely situated, use a small amount of varsol, keep it off of your hands, toss the match from upwind and keep your distance. For pulling down the branches I couldn’t reach (most of them, after a while), I had found a long maple branch with a crotch at one end, which I trimmed to form a perfect hook, with an eight-foot handle. It served me well until the day I stupidly let it get mixed in with a fresh load of branches, and ended up breaking it down to size and burning it with all the rest; it took several days to find a suitable replacement. Some of my wood-gathering efforts were less than routine—a touch farcical, in one case. At the second campsite, on a day when the air had grown sharply colder, I noticed a dead conifer standing only about 20 yards north of the tent. Despite my constant hunt for firewood, it had somehow never caught my attention. Thus began another short but invaluable course in my education as a woodsman. I went over to the tree and checked it out. It was about twenty feet tall, and I judged it to have been dead for roughly six months to a year. That was my first mistake. I also judged it to be dry throughout, therefore brittle and light. I snapped a few branches off; they came, but with much more effort than I expected. I should have taken that hint, but a whole tree of firewood within a stroll of the tent seemed too much of a find—insignificant factors such as sap and water content failed to trouble me. They should have. I brought over Boss’s swede saw, which I’d liberated for the duration, and cut the tree down, a comfortable three feet above the ground. (The three feet was comfortable, but the cutting was tough as hell—I still didn’t realize how wrong I’d been in thinking the thing was dry and light.) I watched it topple over to the north, with just a thin hinge holding it to the stump. I cut through this with yet more difficulty, only to see the butt remain resting, unconnected, on the stump, with an almost animal tenacity. Of course the tree still had nearly all of its branches, several of which were now dug firmly into the ground, holding the trunk at a high angle, with most of the branches beyond easy reach. But I didn’t let this discourage me. I thought that if I could get the butt down on the ground, I could reach more of the branches, and strip them off with a few strokes of the saw. It still amazes me that even after hitching a 2:1 pulley between the butt and a nearby tree, I could not dislodge the damned thing from the stump and get it to fall to the ground. It was only after I had cut off every branch I could possibly reach, including most of those stuck in the ground (surprisingly difficult), that I was able to lighten the trunk enough to manhandle it around and strip it completely. Needless to say, none of the branches ever burned well, and even though I ultimately dragged the biggest section of the trunk over near my neolithic hearth, I never made any attempt to burn it. The fact was, the tree had only recently died, probably that summer. Hence, for my purposes, it was still as wet and tough as green wood. It was green wood. The clue, which I should have noticed but had never bothered to observe, was that it still retained all of its bark. Most of the branches I had been using to heat my bathwater had probably been dead for years, and had no bark left at all, which allowed them to get bone dry in sunny weather. |
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