Naked Wood

There are few jobs in this world that I would say "I can't do that." So far, for reasons I won't go into here, I think only dental hygienist has fallen into this category for me. Anything else, and I'll give it a go. I mean how hard, dirty, boring, complex, smelly, cold, hot, wet can it be.

I've cut ice on a research vessel in the gulf of Bothnia off the northern coast of Finland.

I've repaired cars in a garage with no heat.

I've shovelled gutters of cow manure after plaitting their tails.

I've knelt in fish guts while I've cut out tongues.

I've picked capelin on the night shift.

I've been a tire buster at Canadian Tire.

I've worked in a mine.

I've worked in an ice tank.

I've even worked at Shell.

And one summer I had the pleasure of cleaning out a de-commissioned dairy in St. John's (remember the old Sunshine Dairy plant next to Colonial Garage). Years of milk souring in the pipes we were hauling out in 25 degrees, made for an odorous two week assignment.

But I'm sure I could not pull this off.

Logs come at a butt end diameter of 16"-17" and need to be cleaned of their bark. This is a hand process. I'm told you get a dollar for a linear foot and if you are a good peeler (not to be confused with a good stripper) you can make over $100 a day. That basically works out to 2 - 2.5 logs per day. I got 70 logs so thats about a months work for one person. When I drove up on Saturday I noticed about 20 logs peeled. John later told me that he, his son and another hired hand had been at it all week. Only 50 to go.

When John asked me if I was up there to give him a hand peeling I told him there was an old dairy nearby that had been shut down a few years back and I had promised a guy I'd help him rip out all the piping.

Peter