In the dimness of nightfall
The man works the branch with his axe.
It slowly arches downward,
As if bowing to his superior talents.
And then the next and then another.
He crawls under their quilt of green.
Sheltered from the biting November wind,
He sleeps till dawn.

"My children need shelter when they arrive."
He ponders the challenge ahead,
But only briefly.
He has work to do here in the forest.
Four upright servants of God give way to his arms.
He commands them to a new form,
And his children awaken
To the crackling glow of another lost friend.

The man tills the fertile soil
Enriched by generations of life
And demise on the forest floor.
But the trees are now gone,
Save that one 'neath he once slept.
He will let it's children prosper,
As his children have prospered
Through the triumph of toil and mind.

The full moon watches them grow
Together, side by side.
Two thousand glimpses into
Nature and humanity --
Their friendships and their rivalries.
Their relationship still unfolds
Often predictably,
Sometimes tragically.

A girl awakens in the night
Her sleep broken by a sound
Like popcorn, then a thud.
But the silence alarms her the most.
Familiar rustle outside her window -- gone
Moon-cast dancers on the wall -- no more.
She rises to behold the tree
Laying peacefully beside the house.

She sees the arms reaching upward
Asking to be helped back up
To resume it's quiet role
In the grand scheme of things.
The girl wonders -- what next?
What new purpose for her bedtime friend?
Stories could be told by that great witness of change.
And she would write those stories.

Anonymous

In the 1830s, two young aspiring entrepreneurs from Lanarkshire, James Weir and James Neilson: "were noted bush-whackers... both boasted of making the foundation of their wealth by clearing land and chopping cordwood in Scarboro... both died wealthy".

After assisting to establish the [family] home, he [James Neilson] joined the late Jas. Weir, of Scarboro', in a land clearing and wood chopping partnership, contracting by the job. For the wood chopping they received 25 cents per cord for cutting and piling, and the land clearing was done at the same low ratio. James could cut, split and pile his three cords per day.

We can be fairly certain that sawing contests were an integral part of the Scarborough logging bee during the land-clearing decades. Sawing matches were evidently again quite popular during the winter months of the 1880's, cash being the prize: