To cut, and not to cut ~ March 26, 1992

David Heiller 

The widow maker stood in our woods last Thursday morning, calmly waiting for a man to come its way.

Deane circled it cautiously; chainsaw in hand, the way a cowboy might circle a raging black stallion. He eyed the basswood tree, which had snapped in a strong west wind about eight feet above the ground. Its top rested on four other basswoods, and a large birch, all of which were bent from the extra weight.

What I saw was a lot of firewood, dry on the stump, waiting for my woodstove. What Deane saw was a spring loaded, three-ton wooden widow maker.

Finally he turned to me with a grin. “I’m not cutting that down,” he said. “Mother nature will take care of it for you.”

I was surprised, for perhaps two seconds. Deane Hillbrand handles a chainsaw better than anyone I’ve ever seen. He builds log and timber frame homes for a living. Trees fall where he wants them to.

Deane and Kathryn Hillbrand

But part of a person’s skill with a tool includes knowing what he cannot do, or more precisely, what he should not do. He might have cut the widow maker just fine. But a tree under pressure might fall the wrong way, or snap and spring where you least expect it. That’s why broken trees like those are called widow makers. Α cord of firewood wasn’t worth the risk of a crushed limb, or worse.

We walked on through the woods, on top of the crusted snow, looking for more trees. It was lovely walking, above the deadfall and under-brush. The whole woods seemed open and inviting.

Deane had come over to cut a basswood. He wanted to make some chair seats, and needed some wide boards. Our woods hold some huge basswood. The honey bees love them, and we love their honey. So I love those basswoods. But I told him he could have one off our land, if he would cut some trees.

First Deane spied a dead birch. He dropped it where he wanted, then told me gently, “You’re not cutting this up for firewood.”

“Why?”

“This is a saw log,” he answered. It was a handsome length of log, 22½ feet long, and solid.

I had looked at the birch and seen firewood. Deane had seen boards. But he was right. It would be a travesty to cut a log like that into firewood. There was plenty of firewood in the top branches.

We moved west, over a frozen creek. A skin of ice crashed underneath us. I plummeted a whole six inches until stopping on solid ice. Six inches or six feet, your heart still pounds when that happens.

Deane spotted two red oaks, one dead, the other nearly so. “I hate to say it, Dave,” he began with a laugh. He didn’t have to finish. Another saw log. Sure enough, after he dropped it, we measured 34 feet from the 25-inch butt to the first limbs. We counted 93 rings on the trunk. It has started growing about the time Grandma Schnick was born. There is plenty of firewood in the top, I thought again.

We left the other red oak standing, which was even bigger. It had a few years of life yet; a few branches had budded out. It would wait right where it was.

We found and cut a few other dead birch and maple, which were pure firewood trees. I shouldn’t say we. Deane had the sharper eyes and the sharper saw. I walked along and enjoyed the easy hiking on the firm snow, enjoyed the sunny, 25-degree morning, enjoyed the hawks and nuthatches, and enjoyed watching Deane work.

As we neared the edge of the woods, Deane pointed to a lone tree about 50 yards ahead. “Look at that white oak,” he said. Sure enough, when we got up to it, it was a huge old white oak that was also dying.

“Let’s cut it down,” I said with a little hesitancy. This was an old, old tree, and you don’t cut down trees like that without a lump in your throat. But like the others we had cut, it was dead or dying. There are plenty of other trees for the pileated woodpeckers and red squirrels.

Noah playing 'jack-in-the-box' an elm
stump Deane assisted us with in an earlier year.

Deane cut his notch, then ran the 20-inch bar through the bottom of the tree, working from both sides. At first, it didn’t fall. I stood behind a tree 30 feet away. Another widow maker? Deane eyed his escape path. He always clears a path to safety if a tree doesn’t cooperate. He pounded a wedge into the crack until the wedge disappeared. Then the white oak sighed and tumbled and hit the snow with a final crash.

We counted the rings on the trunk: 182. This tree was already 108 years old when the Moose Lake Fire of 1918 swept north of our land. “It’s probably the oldest tree in your woods,” Deane said.

Deane discovered a hollow section starting 14 feet up the trunk. He cut a two-foot-long piece, then hollowed the rotten part out with his saw Perfect flower planters for Cindy, I thought.

Below that was saw log. Above it was firewood, lots of it.

I asked Deane to cut a 4-inch-thick slice from the stump. It is 43-inches across. I’m going to sand it and oil it and count the rings and think of all it has seen.

By then it was after noon. The crusty snow was starting to break up. We trudged in for chicken soup and corn bread and maple syrup.

Deane never did cut his basswood tree. Somehow it wouldn’t have seemed right to cut down a healthy, living tree. Deane knows what you should cut, and what you shouldn’t.