By midmorning he’d be done with what the barns demanded and then he’d file his saws and grind the double-bitted axe and using the heavy harness with brichens he’d hitch the team to the sledge, load in the skidding chains and whippletree and a pair of nosebags with rations of oats and head up to the woodlot. At the sawpit he’d unhitch the team and leave Pete to stand while Tommy followed him, Norman carrying the saw over one shoulder and the axe on the other and together they’d make their way up the broken trail into the woodlot. He’d fell a tree, selecting not just for the thinning but also for a clean fall. Each site held several right choices with twice as many wrong ones. He wanted no hung trees. Down, he’d limb out the log with the axe and saw through either the tip or midsection depending on the size. Most mornings he’d cut two trees, some three. Then Tommy would skid the log out to the pit. Tommy was a skid-horse; stepping off with Norman’s word and going on his own, needing no driving. Would be waiting with the log always just a few feet shy of the end of the skidway when Norman would catch up to him. So Norman would have to say “Step up there” and Tommy would ease the log up. Then Norman would slip on the nose bags with feed for both horses, step into the pit and pull back the old buffalo robe that covered over the peaveys and canthooks and heavy iron bar and using these tools roll the first log out onto the timbers over the pit. And begin sawing twenty-inch chunks from one end then the other of the log, the timbers over the pit set to act not just as guides for size but to keep the log stable until it was down to the final cut. Then it was down into the pit, the fresh sawdust spread sweet on the crusted old broken snow and frozen clotted sawdust from the days before. The pit not a hole in the ground so much as a cave manmade, with the south side open to level ground. Here he split the chunks into stovewood.

As a child with his father, this work took forever. Mornings were endless cold feet and hands and ears. Now alone he could load the sledge in a morning, often unaware he’d taken no break until the sledge was filled. At noontime he’d hitch the team again and take the load down to add to the lengthening cords stacked tight as drystone in ranks behind the entry way woodshed. Water and stall the still-harnessed horses, feed them down with hay and go in to his meal. In the afternoon doing it all again. He could look down from the sawpit onto the backside of the house and see next winters warmth in the gray stacks. Coming in at dusk or later to the kitchen steamed with food, fatigue a pleasure over him like summer sun, smelling himself as he washed for supper, the sweat and sweet sawdust on him as the skin of a day’s work.