In early February, my friends Sean and Darol and I made an early-morning trip to the woods and collected firewood and logs. Sean needed firewood, and I needed logs, and Darol (shown below) just wanted to come along for the fun of it.

I found two recently fallen fir trees and a western white pine log. Sean felled a dead standing grand fir tree and filled his trailer with rounds for splitting into firewood.

The conditions were sketchy. The snow was high and the roads were slippery. Obviously, those conditions become even more questionable when you are pulling a trailer loaded with one ton of firewood. Sean's Toyota got stuck a couple times, but nothing too serious.

As a matter of principle, I really don't like ATVs. That said, I've been known to use them on rare occasions. We brought Sean's ATV, which is equiped with a winch. It proved to be nearly useless, though. Its weight is too light in comparison to a large log, and with the road being so snowy/icy, it just could not get sufficient traction. Thankfully, we all learned to leave it behind next time.

After the trip, I dropped off the three logs at Jon's (to be milled) and I picked up the first batch of milled timbers. They turned out beautifully. More on that next time...