Firewood

My memory of winters in Granite Falls always has the trees cloaked in thick white snow, even though historical records would probably show rain was more common. The house was heated as often as possible by a black wood-burning stove that sat in the corner of the living room. I loved the smell and the sound of a roaring fire.

In the summer months, mom and I would sometimes accompany dad up some mountain road where the loggers had clearcut, and we would gather wood scraps and leftover logs. He would cut them into sections with his chainsaw, and I don't know what I did, just watch, I suppose, or help fill the truck. I can remember the damp, sweet smell of the fresh-cut wood, and piles of big saw chips, getting smaller as the day wore on and the saw dulled. It seems like the saw itself was a source of great frustration for dad, and half the day was spent trying to get the beast to start. When the truck was finally full, we would bring the wood home and I'd help stack it in the woodshed. Row upon row, until it was nearly full. Some decent forts could be made by crawling up on top of the wood pile and removing logs until there was a hidden little cavern in the middle.

In the winter it was time to burn the wood, which was split and carried to the house, one wheelbarrow load at a time. These were some of my favorite errands. Dad and I would bundle up in jackets, gloves and hats, and venture out into the snow. I can still smell those musty hats and gloves. It was dark out, as this was always an evening task in the winter. The snow would crunch underfoot and sparkle like glitter in the moon/yard light. The sparkling surface of the snow was nothing short of mesmerizing, and no matter how many backcountry ski and climbing adventures I've had since, sparkling, frozen snow always reminds me of going out for firewood. You could see your breath in the cold. There was a little path stomped down from the house to the woodshed. It was always so quiet outside in the snow.

Watching/helping dad split logs was one of my favorite things. A round log section was placed on the block (just a bigger log section) and split with a decisive swing of the axe or splitting maul. I would pick up the resulting split wood and toss the in the wheelbarrow. This cycle would repeat itself for about 10 or 15 minutes until we had a full load. We would stack the wood neatly in the wheelbarrow as we went, and always top it off with a few pieces wedged into the gaps on the sides, and then it was back to the house to unload. We'd put the wood, one arm-load at a time, in a stack next to the fireplace where it could dry out, and it was handy when needed.

That wood pile was always a source of unwelcome spiders in the house - spiders and bark fragments. The floor of the woodshed was carpeted in broken pieces of tree bark too. Sometimes you would pry a piece of bark off a log and find critters underneath. Spiders, beetle grubs, centipedes. If a piece of wood looked particularly spider-infested, it could be thumped against the wood pile to shake off any unwanted passengers.

The River

In keeping with the rural them, I guess I'll start by talking about the river. It has come to my attention that a childhood spent wading a river, hunting for crawdads is not as common as I had once thought. 

It seems to me that I spent just about every day of my childhood up to my hips in the river. I suppose that it was probably just the summer months. "The river" in fact, means so much to me that I could hardly explain. It has a life of its own. The river in question is the Pilchuck River, described by some as a creek, to which I always took offense. It was always a noble river to me and deserved to be recognized as such. I spent my entire childhood in the same house, my parent's still live there. You could throw a burnt pancake into the river without stepping off the back porch. That's how close it is. There was a steep scramble down the bank to get to the rocky shore. It helped if you grasped the ferns on your way down, for balance.

The river would change every summer. During the winter flood season it would swell with rainwater and completely reinvent itself. So each spring, as the waters receded, I was always eager to see what my new playground would look like. Usually there was a huge log jam right in front of the house. Sometimes a new sandy beach would arrive, sometimes a new deep pool or changes to the rocky shore. Every year it was different. The log jam was a source of eternal joy, providing fort-building materials, imaginary swords, guns, spears, walking sticks and actual tennis balls - which for some reason were always washing down the river from someplace upstream. 

The river provided fish and crawdads for capturing. Small minnows were often captured in a plastic drinking cup. Bullheads (sculpins) and crawdads (crayfish) could be caught by hand and stored in a plastic bowl or tupperware. Crawdads always offered some excitement as they were not only exotic-looking, but they pinched! And the bigger the prize, the harder they pinched. I would tote various river creatures around in a cup or bowl for part of a day and eventually release them if they didn't die during captivity. I was always frustrated at how easily they died.

One day I broke into the abandoned trailer that occupied a clearing in the woods next door and discovered a snorkeling mask. This changed my life. I began enjoying the river like never before. You can actually swim right alongside trout! They don't seem to mind you one bit. From then on, I would spend countless hours clawing my way across the river bottom, hand over hand, overturning rocks and exploring every nook and cranny I could stick my nose into. I often found snagged fishing lures, which I regarded as great treasure. Some of them no doubt my own. A river is almost never represented in the world of underwater exploration. You usually see tropical oceans, and occasionally cold water oceans, but very very rarely a freshwater lake or river. Too bad. It's beautiful under there. The water is crystal clear, the stones are more colorful when wet, there are sleek, silvery fish everywhere and the entire environment is alive with motion and activity. It's a shame so few people ever know what that's like. I can't believe how I never noticed how cold the water was. Just a stupid, skinny, shirtless kid, so enamored by the fish that I didn't notice, I guess.

That's the basic overview of the river. Maybe some other time we'll talk about fishing there or building forts, or the raw power of the winter flood, but for now, I'm out of inspiration. 

UPDATE:

I just remembered river shoes. We used to have a little cabinet that sat next to the back door. In the drawers on top were mittens and winter hats, scarves. In the bottom was a big pile of crusty, cracked, sandy shoes that we called river shoes. I think everyone in the house had a pair. It's what happened to your old sneakers when they wore out; They became river shoes. An old pair of sneakers is ideal for walking around on the rounded, slippery river rocks. When you go barefoot, you inevitably jam your toes in the wedge-like cracks between two rocks, bruise your ankle bones and do all sorts of painful damage to your feet. But with your river shoes on, you can run and stomp without holding back. Sandals won't get you there - no side protection.