A Two-Man Saw

We had a two-man saw. More accurately, a two-person saw. We used it to cut fallen trees into short logs that we could then split into smaller pieces to be burned in the wood-burning stoves that helped to keep our home - an old farmhouse - warm (or at least warmish) in winter.

When I say "we" used it, I do me "we," which is why it should have been called a two-person saw, for I was neither man nor woman, but child, and yet many times I pulled on one end of this hefty tool. The saw had two vertical handles, large enough to be gripped by both hands, that were connected to a long metal blade with gigantic teeth. Getting the motion of the saw started was difficult. The big teeth would bump and jump and get stuck in the wood. My father directed me from the other end of the saw, telling me how to pull the handle toward me and not push it, and eventually, eventually, we would strike up a rhythm and the saw would sing as it glided back and forth, cutting through the fallen hardwood. Invariably, though, at some point deeper into the tree trunk, the rhythm would break. We would need to fiddle around, perhaps shifting in the angle of the saw, until we got a rhythm back - at least for a few strokes back and forth before stopping yet again. Invariably, too, my arms would grow tired, and someone bigger and stronger would step in to take my place. But I would always return, to again be one of the "men" at the ends of the saw. 

In every cut tree you can count
the rings to find out how old the tree was.

There was a great sense of satisfaction when the saw slipped through the last of the wood, or neared close enough to the end of its work that the length of log separated from the rest of the trunk and fell to the ground.

Later, the wood had to be chopped, and with this, too, I helped. I learned to wield an ax, and I often went out on a cold autumn or winter day to split some of the logs we had cut with that two-person saw. A giant log located beside the screen porch, under the big old maple tree, provided a chopping spot. The idea was to carefully position the log to be split upright on the larger log. It was richly satisfying to then raise the ax above my head, swing it down in the center of the chosen log, and with one whack split it cleanly into two. Wow! Of course, many times I was off the mark, and the ax went "thud" onto the wood and nothing happened, but I was successful often enough to keep me coming back and splitting more wood.

We had two fireplaces. One was totally enclosed, on four legs, with enough room for Smidgen - who, short-haired dog that she was, was always cold in the winter - to sprawl out beneath it for a nap. When she emerged, panting, she was too hot to safely touch. The second one was a Franklin stove, with glass doors on the front that could be opened or closed. Both gave off significant heat and helped the furnace - too small for the size of the house - heat the rooms.

A trail at Greenways
Conservation Area

The furnace in my home now is plenty big - and fossil fuels alone heat my home. I have a saw in my garage, but it is a one-person saw, and I use it mainly to cut up fallen pine branches before I haul them to the brush pile in the backyard or pile them in the trunk of my car to take them to the landfill.

In the woods near my home, someone else cuts the logs, not for burning in a  fireplace, but to clear the trails. The fallen trees are left to slowly decompose and return to the soil. Some have been lying there long enough to become covered by fungi, or to provide a solid base for a new tree to grow on.

At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose your self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's, but in only one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one--which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your I.               --Dag Hammarskjold


The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day makes utterance, night to night speaks out,
There is no utterance, there are no words, whose sound goes unheard.
Their voice carries throughout the earth, their words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19:1-5