a queer existence: March 2008

Friday, March 28, 2008

Forestry

This is my second season living and working at Autumn Farm. The summer sunshine, queer friends and gentle rural living keep bringing me back for more.

Here on the farm I work for my keep - four hours a day to pay my way. My jobs have ranged widely - from the agriculturally inane to the homoculturally insane. I have scrubbed rooms and made beds. I have dug holes and broken bricks. I have spent a morning rounding up sheep and sat in the rain weeding garden beds.

But my favorite job, by far, is cutting down trees.

At Autumn Farm, much of the power for heating and hot water comes from the trees grown on the land. We burn wood to heat water for the communal bathhouse and keep the wood framed house cosy for guests.

It takes a lot of time and hard work to turn a tree into hot water.

First the tree is planted. The growing sapling needs plenty of water and sunshine to survive, sucking nutrients from the soil as it spreads it branches upwards and fills space with its leaves.

Many European and North American trees thrive in Golden Bay, growing fast in the abundant New Zealand light. Transplanted from their native lands, they compete with native species for space on the valley.

Most of the trees at Autumn Farm have been planted in the last twenty five years. Some of them will outlive us all. Others are for the chop.

Once a suitable tree has been identified for firewood, the tree must be observed to discover in which direction it 'wants' to fall. The distribution of weight in the trunk and branches of a tree is rarely perfect - each tree has a natural 'lean'. With careful planning it is usually (but not always) possible to make a tree fall where you want it to.

The chain saw is primed. The string pulled and the motor engaged. One, two, or sometimes three, cuts are required to take a magestic tree down to the ground with a thud.

Leaves and small branches are removed with a lopper, piled on a trailer and burnt on a bonfire as waste. Larger branches are cut into manageable chunks and stacked in piles to mature for a year.

Each piece of wood is a source of energy - each log a long labour of love.

Photographer: Martin