Wood gathering

It's a rainy day following several rainy days. Thoughts of spending it inside make me groan. So, when Bill says he will probably go after a load of wood if the rain lets up a bit, I tell him that I'll probably be joining him. So will Kiwi. That was the plan for yesterday afternoon. We carried it out without any rain, brought back some wood, and had another good memory.

We gathered our first load of wood a couple of Sundays ago on a gorgeous early fall day. This year, Bill has a wood permit for the Riley Creek area north of Laclede, which is about 12 miles west of Sandpoint. Laclede started out as a ferry crossing near Seneacquoteen when the Wild Horse Trail took miners to the Canadian gold fields during the 1860s. They would come north off the Columbia River from Walla Walla, through Spokane and then follow the trail across the Spokane River to the Pend Oreille River. Then, they'd go east of Sandpoint and follow the trail to the Kootenai River and on up to Canada.

Laclede eventually grew in the early 1900s because of the lumbering industry. A.C. White built his mill there, but when it burned in the early '20s, he relocated 10 miles east in Dover , moving many of the houses via barge down the Pend Oreille River. Now, nearly more than 80 years later, Dover no longer has a mill but Laclede does. Riley Creek Lumber Co. is a state-of-the-art operation. While Dover is transforming into a resort community, Laclede remains a quiet little hamlet away from the craziness----for now anyway.

So, wood gathering this year is kinda fun because I've always liked Laclede with its cute homes and tidy yards. Also, when you get about two miles up the Riley Creek Road, you've gotta have blindfolds if you don't see a wild turkey. There are hundreds of them that roam the fields and wooded areas alongside the road. Some people in Laclede raise some pretty healthy looking blueberries too. There's a sort of serenity there, which I hope can win out as more and more people search for such spots to escape the madness.

Farther up the road, one might think people still like to farm because you see sleek fat cows grazing in big pastures where the barns and houses sit back against the mountainside. I told Bill yesterday I'd give anything to have one of those places. Though they're not far from Laclede, they still make me think of a different, quieter time.

The area where we cut and load our wood is state land, which was logged off a while ago by Riley Creek Lumber Co. It's pretty, even though there are lots of slash piles and downed logs. Apparently, it was reseeded after the logging, so the roadsides are alive with lush green clover.

Yesterday, we took a different road from the one where we cut two weeks ago. It wound upward through an area which gives one a sense of almost manicured openness. There's no brush to speak of; therefore you can see quite a ways. In fact, I had problems yesterday finding a place to squat because no matter how far up or down the hillside I walked, I was still in view of the road.

Probably the highlight of the outing came immediately after we first parked near the end of the road. While Bill was getting his chainsaw ready, Kiwi and I started walking down the road. After just a few steps, I heard a sound off to my left. Looking that way, I could see something big and black moving slowly through the bushes but couldn't detect what it was. So, I picked up Kiwi and kept watching. Eventually, what appeared to be a young bull moose stuck his head up and looked back at me. His white antlers barely extended beyond his ears.

Emboldened with knowledge that the pickup was close by, my usual cowardly impulse to cut and run was nonexistent. In fact, I just stood there and even greeted the moose asking him how he was doing. It was obvious he wasn't interested in responding because he quickly disappeared over the hillside. Kiwi seemed as impressed as I was to see the critter, as she watched and sniffed intently.

We spent the next couple of hours packing chunks of wood to the pickup as Bill sawed birch and fir logs near the road. Kiwi, who followed me every step of the way, kinda likes the responsibility of wood gathering, and so do I. It's a good labor of autumn time, supplemented with sweet, refreshing smells of the woods, unexpected sights, and the promise of toasty winter days, thanks to a warm fire.