LORNE AND WOOD: Recollection of Dave Bush

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Most know that Lorne excelled in many fields. He was an excellent teacher (Prescott, Eastern Commerce, East End, Lakeview,  Malvern), coach, accomplished musician, songwriter and athlete.

   Coupled along with his annual maple syrup making (which I also did in my own operation) Lorne had a particular fondness for an activity that in the years after his teaching retirement occupied the bulk of his time in the outdoors; converting standing or fallen timber into mounds of firewood. All sizes of piles dotted his extensive property, like termite mounds drying on the spot, to be picked up at some later date to be orderly stacked and dried. He was not just cutting trees helter skelter but took deadfall and wind fall along with other standing trees under the wood management programme to promote the health and diversity of his woodlot.

  Of course he used some of this "manufactured" (his word) firewood for his own use in his home in Northumberland County, and the rougher, cruder pieces of hardwood and softwood alike, to fire his burner in the sugar shack, but the majority of the product was stacked and seasoned for sale to various people in the neighbourhood. He had huge rows of hardwood fireplace logs stacked; maple, oak, elm, poplar, birch, ash, ironwood,  beech, cherry,  bitternut, stretching out like a wooden version of the Great Wall of China. Lorne had purchased a big red pickup and a trailer and would deliver the firewood to the awaiting customer. This is not remarkable in itself, but each and every stick of firewood was stacked as neatly and orderly in both the truck bed and trailer - no just heaving the pieces any which way into the air and falling haphazardly where they may. Extremely time consuming, but then it shortened the number of trips he would have to make for delivery. Lorne was ever aware of the value of pennies saved, growing up in hard times, his dinner plate at the end of a meal always described as "licked clean".  So the time was there and didn't cost him anything, but money could be saved on gas as he could make fewer trips to offload the cargo.

  Each stick had been handled by him the minimum of 5 times from bush to delivery and often times more. Lorne kept an account book and could tell you to the dollar exactly how much he had grossed by his firewood hobby-time and expenses would have made the net profit not so much. He didn't do it for the money but answered his calling. He was very adept at splitting wood, something that I could never master (I used a hydraulic log splitter to manufacture my own firewood) and he had a technique with a little flick of the wrist at the instant the axe blade struck the log. Knotty pieces and especially elm could give him trouble, but with wedges, chainsaw, splitting mauls and a hell of a lot of sweat and determination he could rightfully boast to me that he had "never left a stick  in the bush",  conquering all that he attacked.

     Such was Lorne in all his endeavours; determined, ordered, organized, talented and successful - a life well lived.

 

                                                                Dave Bush