Charlie and me went to the Woodsmen’s Competition down to Bouchard’s Farm this weekend. I thought it would be fun for us to check it out. Logging is part of my heritage, after all.
My grandfather, George, was a lumberjack most of his life. Legend has it, he could cut three chord of wood per day with a buck saw, and drop a tree so it landed just where he wanted it, every time.
Don’t know what George would have made of the whole thing. You know, people competing 
against each other, splitting, cutting, and chopping wood. Jobs my grandfather was probably glad to see the back side of when he finally quit doing ‘em. But boy, we found it fascinating!
Axe throwing was the first thing that caught my eye. You should have seen them, men and women, competing against each other throwing that double-bit axe. You know, them axes with the cutting edge on both sides of the head. (Think “Braveheart” or “Last of the Mohicans,” only with better personal hygiene!) The axes fly through the air, end over end, biting into a target. Darn those folks were good! Especially this one little gal in a pink top, who didn’t look big enough to even pick the thing up. She just got one bulls eye after another.
There was wood splitting, of course, men’s and women’s division, where folks compete to see how fast they can split two logs into pieces small enough to fit through a hole in a wall. Man, some of those gals where rugged, whacking away at the wood like it was watermelon.
As you’d expect, there were lots of chainsawing events. Guys (and you know it has to be guys) wearing bright orange chaps (not a bad look), “wreckin’ wood” with loud machines. Charlie just loved it. Most events were “factory” chainsaws, but they saved the big guns for last, the modified chainsaws. In this event, men are competing to see who has the biggest, loudest, fastest, bad-ass chainsaw. We’re talking chainsaws with mufflers and motorcycle or snowmobile engines. Really!
These fellas were flying through 8”x8”’s, three cuts, down, up, down, from a cold start. Meaning, they had to start the chainsaw, then cut off three pieces of wood. And most were clocking in at under three seconds.
I perked at one point when the announcer said, “He has a cutout on the first cookie, and he’s DQ’d.” Cookies? Dairy Queen? Now, we’re talking. Turns out, what he meant was that on one of the passes, the guy had cut off an incomplete piece of wood, and was disqualified. Disappointing for both of us!
While the chainsawing was impressive, I think I preferred the acoustic events. The ones I could picture my grandfather doing. Like the bow saw or two-person crosscut. No tricks, just skill. A couple of times the announcer reminded us how, “Fast is slow. Slow is smooth. And smooth is fast.” There’s got to be a life lesson in there somewhere.
What I found most interesting about the Woodsmen’s Competition was that it’s this whole little world I didn’t know nothing about. It’s what these folks do. I mean, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. It’s their thing, their passion, and they go at it full bore. I like that!
As the announcer said, “There’s a difference between being involved and being fully committed. Take bacon and eggs. The chicken is involved, but the pig is fully committed.”
That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!
Here Ida Tell It: The Woodsmen’s Competition
Coming Up This Week
August 22: The Best of Ida, ACT ONE Summer Festival, 2:00 & 7:30pm, Portsmouth, NH
August 24: The Best of Ida, Celebration Barn Theatre, 7:30pm, South Paris, ME
Next Week
August 29: The Best of Ida, ACT ONE Summer Festival, 2:00 & 7:30pm, Portsmouth, NH
This Fall
September 25: A Visit With Ida, South Berwick Senior Center, 11:00am, South Berwick, ME
October 17: The Moose in Me, The Moose in You!, National Hospice Volunteer Conference, 8:00pm, Holiday Inn By the Bay, Portland, ME
November 3: Cold River Radio Show Live featured storyteller, 7:00pm, Theatre in the Wood, Intervale, NH
Check out my full schedule here.
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