Imagine a set of steep, steep stairs, like a set leading to a cellar in an old house. That angle is around 30 degrees, the same slope as the hill we bring the logs up. Now imagine an imaginary ‘landing’ halfway down the stairs. That ‘landing’ would be the ‘bench’ of rock we have on our 120 foot-long hill. The ledge is about 40 feet up from the beach and is where the logs are stored for drying before coming up later for further processing (bucking and splitting and stacking).

Each log segment is about 12 feet long and 10 inches in diameter or about 400-500 pounds. Sal ‘hooks ’em up’ using a choke and block and taykle and then the winch drags them up to the bench area. There the log is released from the high-line and piled with others in a big heap. Sal does the releasing and the piling. Gravity does most of the work but she has to wrestle the odd one into place and make sure it is situated securely enough so that it does not shift suddenly and take the increasing heap of wood – several tons – on a ramble down the hill.

Yesterday we were finishing the lift up from the lagoon and adding the last few pieces. The pile was a bit higher than we thought it would be. There were about 16 or so on a narrow ledge arranged like pick-up-sticks. They were about four or five logs deep. Logs akimbo. Sal was nimbly dancing across them as she tugged a log to and fro trying to get it to settle down into the right place.

I stood at the winch controls and watched the activity from about 70 feet away and from an elevation of 40 feet higher. It looked to me like an accident waiting to happen.

“Sal! I don’t think scrambling over the pile is a good idea. There are four or five tons of unstable logs perched halfway up a steep hill and you are dancing on top of ’em like a Chinese acrobat. What would WorkSafe BC say?”

“Don’t worry! It’s not hard. I got my balance. And they are lodged in pretty good. I’ll be fine.”

We’ve been together forty years and if there is one thing that separates us (besides appeal) it is her NO FEAR attitude. Sal laughs at danger and piles scorn on warnings. Worse, she takes umbrage at being told what to do even if the message is delivered with tact and sensitivity to her being an adult (in other words: when it comes to safety, she thinks like a 16 year old boy on a skateboard in front of a gaggle of girls).

I am a bit more careful by nature (a flying squirrel is more careful than Sal). But I’ve learned not to warn her directly, I do not instruct directly and I do not criticize her at all. I am also careful about what I say.

And, of course, I have a sense of fear about that, too.

But this was too much.

“Damn it, Sal. Get the hell off that pile! Stay upside the logs at all times and be safe for once! You are freakin’ me out! If you don’t get off that pile, I am coming down to drag you off!”

That little outburst surprised me. Those could have been BIG fightin’ words. I was hung out on a very thin chauvinistic limb. The smell of immediate danger in the air was palpable. Foot was inadvertently put down firmly and it usually ends up in my mouth when I do that – especially when telling Sal how to do something she has been doing well for a long time.

I cringed at my indiscretion………..

“OK, sweetie. I’ll play it safe.” And she got off the pile and completed the job taking the necessary care for her own safety.

I was in shock! I have no idea what just happened there. Everywhere I looked, there was danger. I looked left and looked right and leaped blindly into the fray. And it worked out. Thank God.

It is so easy to make a mistake out here and then someone can get hurt. Logging is a dangerous pastime.

Telling Sal what to do? Suicidal!