Cordwood

As I think I mentioned in an earlier post my father owned a one-hundred acre parcel next to my Uncle Bob’s place in Oregon. The property was mostly covered with second growth Douglas fir. A very large pile of sawdust was the only reminder of a long-gone sawmill. There was a small spring that fed an elongated marshy area. Along this marshy area grew a stand of live oaks. Because this stand was surrounded by tall Douglas fir trees, the oak trees tended to grow very tall and slender, reaching for the sunlight. It was from this stand of oak trees that the family gathered firewood for their fireplaces and kitchen stoves.

(I pause in this narrative to explain the concept of cordwood. A cord is a stack of firewood four feet wide by four feet high by eight feet long. Cordwood is pieces of firewood four feet long. Cordwood was typically delivered to a wood shed or a basement where it was bucked into fireplace or stove lengths. It was then split and allowed to dry before burning. A rick is half a cord.)

Using two-man crosscut saws and axes the trees were felled and trimmed. (Remember this was before chainsaws.) To cut the oak logs into four foot lengths Uncle Bob had a buzz-saw with a blade about two feet in diameter. This saw was powered by Uncle Bob’s one-lung diesel tractor using a wide belt drive.

In addition to providing cordwood to family members, some of the wood was sold to folks in Oregon City. Aware as I am of the current price of firewood it is difficult for me to believe my memory, but I recall that cordwood was delivered to town for four dollars a cord.

My Cow S**t Cousin

I have mentioned George Ward previously. (His mother’s brother was married to my grandmother’s sister.) George was a graduate of Lowell High School in San Francisco. He spent some time as a roustabout in the oilfields near Bakersfield before becoming a dentist in San Francisco.

George had a country home in Camp Meeker where his parents lived and George spent his weekends. George had his place fenced with eleven-foot high fences to keep the deer out of his rose garden. He had started with an eight-foot fence but that did not do the job.

The handle “Cow S**t Cousin” came about in an interesting way. As noted above George had a rose garden. He was very fond of his roses. So when he expressed an interest in getting some chicken manure to fertilize his roses, I rose to the occasion. At the time I was driving a large Dodge pickup. The family was friendly with neighbors by our old chicken ranch. These neighbors had not had chickens for some time and had plenty of well-rotted chicken manure in some of their old chicken houses. Over the period of several years I hauled a number of pickup loads of chicken manure to George’s roses. Thus “Cow S**t Cousin” because “Chicken S**t Cousin” just didn’t sound right.

It is interesting to note that although George professed to be an atheist (His comment about the chicken manure: “…more precious than the blood of Christ”.) his best friend was a Catholic priest to whom he left his estate.

George was a great story teller. He had a particular fondness for bawdy limericks. Remind me sometime and I can repeat some of them for you.

Cover Boy

When my parents purchased my grandfather’s chicken ranch there came with it a Jersey milk cow named Shiny. Shiny had a crumpled horn that she knew how to use. On more than one occasion she boosted my brother and me over the fence with it.

At one time my father promised me that I could have the next calf from our small herd of milk cows. On Easter Sunday in 1947 Shiny gave birth to beautiful twin Jersey calves. Appropriately or not we named them Mary and Magdalene.

Somehow a reporter from Country Gentleman magazine heard about the birth of the twin calves. The reporter showed up with a photographer. Some months later, there on the cover of the magazine, was a picture of me in my knit cap (it was freezing cold) with the twin calves.

Maggie lived a short, tragic life, a bit too gruesome to relate here. Mary became a fine, productive milk cow.