About that log

What is most unique about this photo? Is it the fact a squirrel and a white tail buck are eating bird seed together off a log? Well! Maybe? Perhaps because it was taken only 25 feet from our front door? Most unique to me is that log has been lying there for 40 years and Iris and I are the only ones in our neighborhood with a 10,000-pound hunk of tamarack wood on the lawn, that close to the house and is well over six feet in diameter.

When we had our own newspaper in the 1970s, I did a story on Clyde Smith's logging operation discovering an ancient stand of western larch hidden away in a remote corner of Lost Prairie. Did a photo feature on cutting of half a dozen of those giants and then getting them out to the mills. At the site, I innocently asked Clyde what he was going to do with the huge butt logs.

He said, "George, you know those things were here before Columbus came to America. They've developed signs of butt rot and are misshapen because of base expansion close to the ground over hundreds of years to support large root systems and great height. You've been a logger and know damn well we have no choice but to leave 'em here to feed future trees."

"Golly," I replied, "Seems like a shame to just leave them all here."

Two days later while eating breakfast. I had my back to the window but Iris was looking out. She asked, "George did you order some wood?" Looked out and saw a large truck pulling a lowboy up our lane. Clyde Smith's sons were driving the rig. They stopped it on our lawn near the front porch and I knew we were receiving a present from Smith Logging. The boys apologized because they couldn't get the biggest one for me because of some soft ground.

They asked, "Where do you want it?" I gave an unwise answer, "Oh! Just any place would be fine."

Life is good.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.