Decades ago, particularly in the 60's, wood gathering was really fun. Lots of log rafts on the Columbia River, log barges and log ships losing part of a deck load now and then and miles of beach meant that Saturday's were spent with Dad and friend Ed Chelis hunting down nice logs. You could have your pick and as the commercial log salvage was pretty none existent, we could pick of any log we wanted. By the age of 12 I could hop out of truck, take a few whacks at a log and know it if was desirable fir or less desirable hemlock or other mystery tree like spruce. I walk a lot on the beach in the late afternoon and nowadays I get to watch modern wood gathers do the strangest things. There isn't as much choice now and any good log will burn given enough drying time. The above pic represents a sort of modern profiling where the wood cutter took one cut right through the middle of a nice hemlock to figure out the wood type, then decided to not cut any more.
Or this one where the woodcutter(s) take a whack and that's not good enough and then cut then end off the hemlock and that's not good enough. This log was 1/2 dry and would burn nicely on a cold February morning when it's the olny wood available, but no..got to have that fir!
But sometimes, there is not satisfying even the most discriminating wood cutter and here's a whack out of nice piece of fir. Nope, not good enough. Got to get back in the truck and look for wood 'cause when you are wood cutting on the beach, it is all about looking for wood.
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