So we spent our first weekend camping in the woods behind the barn. It was a great weekend over all, give or take an event or two. The kids spent nearly the whole three plus days on the 4 wheelers, they had sparklers, smores and even a ball game. I thought the last bit was perfect given how the week end started. As always the kids got along perfectly, I don't think there were any real spats, even among the brothers and sisters that were there.
So I'll fill those you in that are wondering where the idea for this post started, especially since the piece of machinary mentioned in the title has yet to make an appearance. Jen, Ian and I started camping with my cousins Gene and Angela and their families 2 years ago. We camped in Kingsbury Maine on a track of land owned by Linkletter Inc. A logging company Gene works for who gives it's employees permission to use the areas not being harvested. We started out with a tent and air mattresses. Soon moving on to buy a small '70s vintage camper trailer late in the first year. We used it last year in Kingsbury, hauling it up in the spring and bringing it back in the early fall. This year circumstance caught up with us. Gas prices were going to drastically reduce how many weekends we were going to be able to drive all the way to Kingsbury, my Grandmother Rines also gave us a scare a few weeks ago, and being up there was just too far for me and Angela. When we bought the camper Dad had suggested leaving down behind the barn. So this year we took him up on it. So last Sunday Clint (Angela's husband), Troy (a mutual friend of mine and Angela's) and I hauled our campers down to the perfect camping site. A little meadow that was flat and way away from every body. Unfortunately it wasn't on Basford land. We contacted the owner and he was nice enough to give us this weekend to get another site ready.
Here enters the skidder. The back up site we chose was nice but not as flat. We, as in all of us including the kids, worked to clear the fallen limbs and scrub brush. We put the chain saws to work and dug a fire pit. We had a nice stack of wood started and it was taking shape. There were still a lot of old logs and tops laying around the edge of the clearing. So when Dad offered to bring the skidder down to clear that stuff up I didn't hesitate. Under normal circumstance this wouldn't be an even of note. But when you find out that the skidder is older than I am, you start see some of the significance. Dad didn't buy the skidder new, as with most Wayne-mobiles it was a used market purchase. From my memory it was an upgrade to the old Bombadeer that Dad had used to skid logs out to the yard. This was literally a sidewalk plow that had caterpillers (tracks). Where the bombadeer was limited in where it could get too and what it could twitch out, the skidder wasn't. If my memory serves this was the first major purchase that Dad bought for working in the woods. The "Black Beauty" was the second and deserving of it's own post.
For those that don't remember or have yet to meet the skidder, it's a yellow John Deere with a plow on the front, winch on the back, and tires as tall as any Basford. The final payment on the skidder was made in 1978, when the independent logger could actually make a good living cutting wood and paying to have it hauled to the mills. That would change within a few years of that final payment. To give some perspective, I was 8 then, just 2 years younger than my son is now. From about '73 to '80 Dad worked in the woods every day it didn't rain cats and dogs or the breath froze in a cloud in front of your face. Of course Gramp worked with him, though I'm not sure when he did so full time. He finally gave it up in '80 when the independents were pushed out the days of the large loggers took over. The skidder became Gramp's full time toy then, understand that at this point he was 60 years old. He used it nearly every day until he handed it's full time operation over to Uncle Bill and Tom. It was with this skidder that all of us Grand Kids earned extra money in the summers. From Zeb to Joe each of us that lived on Basford Road, at one time or another, accompanied Gramp to the wood lots. Whether it was cutting fire wood, pulp or logs the skidder was central to getting the work done. Now that skidder has been passed on again. Jeremy uses it to cut various lots, and of course Dad uses it for nearly everything. For those that don't know the skidder was the machine of choice to do the "fine detail work" on the lawns around Mom and Dad's house. It was used to haul the trailer that Jen and I lived in out behind Jeremy's house, the same trailer that sits behind Mom and Dad's house now that is full of lumber. If you look really close at the front you can still see the dents where the trailer ran into the skidder's rear tires as he hauled it down Route 220 from the Ferris' lot.
The thing that may be most interesting is that it's as famous for being broke down as it is for the work it's done. There were periods in its' life where it spent more time torn apart than it did running.
I think if we, the grand kids, think about it there is most likely at lease one memory where the skidder plays a central part. I'd love, as I'm sure everyone would, to hear those memories, as they most likely would have Gramp in them too.
