Earth First – 1 Clint Renner Logging – 0
The local sawmill burned to the ground last week. Now, since Clint is a common as cornbread, big hearted church going country folk without an enemy in the world I suspect this is the work of deep ecology eco-warriors. Fire lit up at 1:30 am on a Sunday night, and he said that it wasn’t localized and spread out – it torched up the whole perimeter at once. Not an insurance job, either – poor sob didn’t have any.
So I’m cleaning out and scavenging “unmarketable” lumber destined for the burn pile and some things began to strike me as way too fucked up. First, the guy who lives in the trailer house Clint hauled onto the property (to enhance security) woke up to the sound of fire trucks. The fucko bazzoo? He still lives in the trailer. I’da has his ass out in the yard tied up to a post making him watch me set fire to all his furniture and possessions. I’m a dick that way. Secondly, Trailer Guy has a dog cooped up in a tiny dog run. The logpile is between the dog and the sawmill. No barkie at things that go bump in the night. And lastly, I’m hauling out massive amounts of lumber, blocks of dried hardwood walnut, nice dried out slabs that didn’t get burned up in the burn pile but seasoned out for sure – And I notice that the trailer house has a 500 gallon propane tank hooked up to it!!! WTF?
Ya live next to a hardwood sawmill and burn propane to heat your house? Staggers the imagination…
So, here’s a couple of pics of my bonanza:
Yea, yea, the yards a mess. That’s Playland. The rest of the place is pretty spiffy. ‘Cuz everything gets dumped in playland.
So I have a huge supply of rough sawn walnut farm lumber. Building a house for Three Dollar Pig, and I’ll finish the huge 3 bin compost bin as soon as it quits goddamn raining – sheesh I hate February. I now have the lumber for all the gates I wanna make, pearlings and whalers for the greenhouse-to-be, nailers for the smoke house etc etc.
But I’d gladly give it all back if Clint’s sawmill could come back to life. Some thing just suck too bad for words. Torching a small family owned and operated sawmill ain’t gonna stop one damn tree from being cut down.
And here’s the bashed and crashed pickup of mine jus’ ‘cuz
239,000 miles and doesn’t use a drop of oil. And when an idiot hit me the insurance totaled it out for a thousand bucks and I bought the salvage for 150. Two hours with a rubber mallet beating out the dents and a 10 dollar junkyard headlight bucket and good to go. I can’t remember how the bumper got fucked up though, and I don’t even drink any more…
February 24, 2008 at 8:19 am |
Great post. I hardly know where to begin.
the mill may have burned by eco-freaks? Definitely motive there…even if misguided. But what about competitors, disgruntled employees, ex-wives, idiots, land developers? I just ask because I agree it would be a very stupid move for any supposedly conscientious ecologist to burn a small, local, family mill… Though, I can also believe that to be the case.
Anyway, looks like you got a good haul. Frankly I can’t wait to start storing up some resources.
I like the story of your truck. I have an ol 81 Westfalia that needs some work, including some rubber mallet work.
Oh, and it’s great to hear you don’t drink…
February 24, 2008 at 10:25 pm |
The post would have been boring if I left out the sinister tree hugger idea… If a guy is gonna get totally screwed there should at least be some dark forces at work.
Maybe someday the eco warriors will smarten up and blow craters in all the entrances of a Vole-Mart.