Forest

Un Eléphant dans mon carburateur | home

Forest

You may be aware through your immense culture, that Sweden is not located between the U.S.A. and Cuba, that while the dreams of the Swedes go to Malibu Beach, the nearest we come to tropical beaches are Baltic beaches, swept by the Polar Winds with sea water above 16° Celsius. The girls are not less beautiful for that.

To come back to my main point, agriculture is rather limited when the fields are covered by 50cm of snow. (in U.S. language, 50cm is the height at which skirts were beginning). Sometimes they are covered by 2 meters of snow. So there you are, you are a farmer, you have plenty of fields, you are young and full of strength, what are you supposed to do when you have to wait until April to get the feel of moist soil in your hands? True, you are not idle, you are reading all the texts on how to prepare your Tax Return Form. As my Professor in Economy used to say, the Tax Return Form is the greatest source of income for a Swedish Farmer.

In his wisdom the Creator of the Swedish Agriculture created Forest. All winter will be spent in the forest, logging trees;

If I may insert of remark of great wisdom, if you do not understand the Forest, you have no chance of understanding Sweden. The Forest is like some endless church, a church you have all for yourself and moose and roe-deer's and the wind. This is the only place where you can think in peace. And like heaven, there is a snake, but the Swedish forest snake is worse than the biblical snake, what makes your life hell is mosquitoes and flies.

So, at Frötuna we were working in the forest.

I was not sufficiently qualified to use logging machines or to use chain saws. But I was qualified enough to drive tractors pulling carts loaded and overloaded with tree fur tree trunks.

The idea of our colleague using the loading grip was that so long as he could see a patch of sky, the cart was not yet loaded.

Sweden is a land of rules and regulations but how would you expect a Volvo police car to find its way into the depth of the Swedish Forest especially as it could so easily happen that a Forest Worker, being so busy with his chain saw, would drop a tree just behind the Police car and would tell them that they were really lucky, such a tree on top of a Police car, that could be really dangerous and they would learn not to park their Toy Cars in the middle of tree logging spaces.

Tractors are rather expensive and replacoing them seems a bit useless. A tractor is basically a very powerfull engine so mounted that it will pull things. To make work easier it has also tyres. Did I hear anybody ask about the working of the brakes? The brakes? What would be the point of having brakes on a tractor that has as purpose to pull things?

So, our log cart being loaded we would worm our way through the forest, we were not at all hindered by the fog on the windscreen as there was no windscreen. It may be possible that the work would have been more pleasant had we had any feeling in our legs. After one hour in the forest, it did not matter how many pairs of trousers you had, you felt nothing, neither in legs not hands, the only thing you really worried about was whether you would stop feeling the frost at the tip of your nose as this indicated that frost bites had started.

For strange geological reasons, the Farm Forest have a tendency to be up the mountain, imbedded in huge boulders; We would try and work our way from the logging station to the feeder road and having reached the feeder road we would change from low second gear to high four and we would go to sleep on our seat. It was pointless not to take advantage of this moment of the day as we could anyway do nothing, when you drive down a forest feeder road with 5 tons of logs behind you on an iced covered surface, the only thing you can do is wait and hope. If anything unexpected would happen, you had been indoctrinated not to try and brake as this would have meant shearing all over the road and the tractor and cart ending in the forest, yourself or what remained of yourself being lost likely under everything.

Up to that point, I am only describing a routine working day in a nice Swedish Farm, I even wonder why I bother.

What complicated things a bit was that the same road was used by huge trucks coming from the gravel quarry. these trucks were under the impression that the road belonged to them (which could well have been true) and could see no reason why they should drive into the forest in a panick just because a brakeless 5 ton charged mad tractor was rushing down the slope towards them.

The road would have enlargement spaces every 500 meters as its width had been calculated on the basis of a slim SAAB Swedish car, not a mad tractor and an obstinate Truck. It is statistically impossible, yet I can vouch that when the truck and the banshee tractor met, it was always at these meeting points. Due to the speed at which the encounter took place, I must regretfully admit that I have not been able to fully grasp the comments offered by the truck drivers.

Five to ten miles later we would arrive at the saw mill. Here I can see that you are relaxing and wondering whether it could not possibly be the right time for a glass of whisky. I can only encourage you to have the glass of whisky as the grisly part is going to start.

Remember that we are in the middle of the winter, that temperature by the midst of the day may reach the boiling temperature of minus ten degrees, that most iron and steel contraception's built on log trucks have been designed for show room which have a temperature of plus 25°.

When we arrived at the saw mill we were supposed to jump of the tractor with agility (have you seen an iceberg jump of a cliff with agility?), pull at the release handle and wait for the logs to fall down in the saw mill reception yard. Most of the program went as indicated, except as from the part where I write about the release lever. After you had pulled it, nothing would happen, which was good news. Bad news was when it would only open half way.

So you took your iron bar (if you meet someone on the road or in the forest and he does not carry an iron bar, then he is neither a farmer nor a forester), you crept under the cart and started banging on the release bolts. Mostly the bolds considered this as a minor annoyance, something to be endured, the way you endure mosquitoes when you are walking and then suddenly they would get fed up of he game and 5 tons of logs would fall down the cart, most of the logs apparently having only one idea in their head, to try and hit you straight in the chest

The Saw Mill chairman would shout:

<< everything OK, the tractor is not damaged?>>, you would whistle some careless tune, pich up your thermos bottle, have a cup of coffee, and drive back for another round in the forest.

I thought it would be boring for the reader if I wrote after each paragraph << and then you took your thermos and had a cup of coffee>>, yet it is the truth.