April 3, 2005

• The Firewood Saga Continues

  If you’ve been following the story of our attempts to stay warm this
  winter, you may recall that Jason, our young neighbor who had supplied
  our firewood for several years, killed himself last year.  It was
  coincidentally near the time that we were ready to start stocking wood
  for the winter.

  Jason had had an argument with his wife one night.  He went to the
  lodge and got drunk.  The next morning, she found him hanging in
  their barn.  We learned of it that same morning, when Greyfox
  called and asked for Jason, to order a load of fuel.

  It rocked the neighborhood.  For weeks, every conversation among
  neighbors at the spring or the general store involved Jason and
  Selena.  We’d share what information we had, express concern for
  Selena, and wonder what she and the kids were going to do.  Then
  someone would ask, “Do you know anyone around here who’s selling
  firewood now?”

  Jason’s suicide left a big gap in the immediate area.  Its impact
  was emotional because everyone knew him.  It hit many of us close
  to home in another way because our households depended on him for
  winter warmth.  I tried calling every ad in the local papers, on
  flyers hanging on bulletin boards, and in the yellow pages.  Those
  who weren’t out of wood already were either unwilling to deliver this
  far up the valley or to go to the extra trouble of cutting it in the
  short lengths we need.

  Finally,
  around the end of September, after the first few snowfalls had come to
  signal winter and then melted in the sun, I found George.  On his
  first trip here, I snapped his pic and reported to you about his
  apparent NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).  A few days after that, I told the final chapter of
  that story.  He had tried to cheat me, selling me six tenths of a
  cord and calling it a full cord.  Then one night in a drunken
  phone conversation, he had told me that his truck only held 3/10 of a
  cord.

  When he came back to sell me another three-tenths for sixty dollars,
  I’d confronted him.  Rather than revise his measurements or
  renegotiate the price ( I was less disturbed over the expense than I
  was over the dishonesty), he opted not to do business with me.  He
  allowed Doug to unload most of that load before he left, yelling out a
  veiled threat as his parting shot.

  That scant nine-tenths of a cord lasted us into December.  Through
  October and November I had been calling every number of every ad for
  firewood I found and all the ones that Greyfox saw on bulletin boards
  in town.  Finally, in desperation, I went back and called all the
  ones who hadn’t returned my calls, telling everyone I was out of wood,
  implying desperation.

  I also called someone I’d dealt with once before and chosen not to deal
  with again.  This guy, Mark, runs patronizing ads that say
  “firewood even your wife can burn.”  In this household, I’m the
  one who gets the fire going when the wood is wet, or restarts it when
  one of the guys lets it go out, and I don’t have a wife.  I hadn’t
  liked Mark’s ad, I didn’t like his attitude when he delivered the wood
  that first time, before Jason had moved in and started selling wood,
  and I didn’t like the fact that he delivered me a short cord, much of
  which was cut in longer lengths than he’d agreed to.
   
  I held my nose and ordered a cord of wood from Mark.  I wrote
  about the runaround he gave me, the delays because I told him I didn’t
  want the cord of mixed birch, spruce and aspen he was apparently
  picking up from someone who’d previously bought it from him, and his
  novel method of emptying his truck by backing it up and slamming it
  into the woodpile.  After keeping me waiting a couple of days
  while he said he was cutting a load of the birch I wanted, he came late
  at night and delivered the mix of birch, spruce and poplar.

  Among the callbacks I got later on that desperate day of calling around
  was one from a guy named Lou.  He had a big truck and promised me
  a cord and a third of birch for $130.  Kinda high price, but I was
  asking for short lengths and a long ride to deliver it, so I accepted
  even though it wasn’t seasoned wood.  I figured I needed more than
  one cord to get us through the winter.  Even though those two
  deliveries had originally been scheduled days apart, they ended up
  being delivered all the same night.  Lou, at the last minute,
  decided to charge me an extra $20 delivery charge.  That story is here.

  I have mentioned here a few times lately that we were running out of
  wood again.  Doug and I kept the fire low and used the inefficient
  little electric heaters for several weeks as I tried to find
  fuel.  I tried Lou, and he was out of wood.  Mark’s ad was no
  longer in the newspaper, or I might have held my nose and tried him
  again.  I don’t know.  That’s a decision I’m glad I didn’t
  have to make.  We prepared ourselves to make it through until warm
  weather by dressing in some extra layers and running up the light bill.

  Greyfox found several new numbers on bulletin boards in town.  One
  of the ones I called was a cell number that put me in an electonic loop
  before telling me it wasn’t a valid number.  When Greyfox called
  that number one day, just to find out if it was defunct so he could
  remove the flyer and make room for one of his own, he got through and
  gave Tim my number.  Then he called me and gave me Tim’s number.

  
  After a couple of rounds of phone tag, Tim and I talked to each other
  and he agreed to bring me a cord of mostly birch, cut to my 11-inch
  lengths, for $120.00.  Meanwhile, Doug had been shoveling the deep
  snow away from around the edges of the woodpile.  He found some
  strays that had rolled off the pile, and hit one significant vein that
  kept the fire going at a low level.  We were managing to keep the
  stove from becoming a big cast-iron heat sink, the coldest object in
  the room, but just barely.

  The day Tim had promised his first delivery passed with no word from
  him.  The next day, I called him — phone tag again.  I left
  a message on his voicemail.  When he called me back, he apologized
  and said he had forgotten all about me.  I had already felt good
  about Tim, but when he told me that it only confirmed my feeling that I
  could trust him.  I hate being lied to, and I was dead certain
  that Tim was telling me the unvarnished truth.

  He still didn’t get here with the wood when he said he would. 
  Late at night the day he had promised the delivery, he called. 
  Doug caught the CallWave message:  Tim’s nephew had rolled his
  truck.

  
  When Tim called the next day, I took the call.  He said his nephew
  was okay but the truck wasn’t.  He had a friend with a truck he
  could use.  I got the first delivery that night.  It was
  mostly birch as we’d agreed.  It was well-aged as he had
  said.  It was obviously more than I’d gotten in the two loads that
  George had called a cord, but Tim was quick to tell me it wasn’t a full
  cord.

  I told Tim that night that I’d had a good feeling about him when he
  told me he’d forgotten me.  He said his girlfriend had overheard
  his end of that conversation.  “Why do you tell people things like
  that?” she had asked.  “It’s true,” he had answered her.  I
  said that was a good enough reason for me.

  He had said that the first cord for each customer was $120, but he’d
  sell subsequent cords for “regular” customers for $100.  I had
  agreed to buy 2 cords this spring, even though I’m pretty sure one will
  get us through the rest of this year’s cold weather.  As Tim, his
  helper, and Doug unloaded the wood, we talked about payment.  I
  told him I had the $120 in cash, and asked him if he’d be willing to
  take my check for the second cord, or if I’d need to go to an ATM to
  withdraw more cash.

  I was surprised when he agreed to take my check.  Woodsellers
  around here don’t take credit cards.  That idea, to most, is
  absurd.  None of the ones I’ve ever dealt with would take checks,
  either.  They’re just like dope dealers that way.  It is a
  cash business, usually, and they don’t give receipts.  

  I asked Tim if he’d be selling firewood next fall.  He told us he
  would be back in October to start selling wood again.  I got the
  feeling that he’d prefer selling us next winter’s wood this
  spring.  I wasn’t sure where I’d get the money, but I knew that I
  could get a cash advance on a credit card if I had to, so I told Tim to
  bring me five cords.

  We’ve gotten to know each other better than I’ve gotten to know any of
  my previous firewood dealers.  That night, he handed Doug a little
  slip of paper on which he had written, “Chirikof Island.”  He said
  “they” had made a webpage about him, and I could search it out.  I
  did that the next day.  I found the site devoted to the Alaska
  Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, and several other web references to
  Tim.

  Some of the people who write about Tim call him a “maverick.”  For
  those who didn’t grow up on cowboy movies the way I did, I’ll define
  that word.  Originally, it was a calf on the open range without a
  brand.  When it became applied to men, it referred to one who
  followed his own rules and belonged to nobody but himself.  It
  wasn’t necessarily an insult, unless one happened to be the
  conservative sort who believed in conventional laws and social
  order.  Most mavericks were decent people, something like what is
  known in RPG terms as “chaotic good.”

  By the time I’d finished reading all I could find about Tim, I
  understood why I’d had such a good feeling about him just from his
  voice, before we’d ever met.  We see eye to eye on a lot of
  issues.  This turned out to be a good thing for both of us. 
  We had made our first contact about the time Mercury went retrograde,
  and our whole association thus far could be summarized in two
  words:  retrograde Mercury.

  He has had telephone problems, and so have we.  He’s had
  persistent mechanical problems as well as heavy snowfall and some
  inconvenient thawing of the ground around the lake where he’s getting the wood.  He
  has delivered about half of my wood, and I’ve paid him for the entire
  order so that he could get the parts he needs to fix his truck so he
  can deliver the rest.  Very soon, after the thaw, the area where
  he cuts the wood will be inaccessible.  He’s working against time,
  and I’m happy to help as much as I can because there’s an advantage in
  here for me, too, besides the pleasure of dealing with someone I like
  and respect.

  
  I’m not going to write out all the details here of Tim’s venture on
  Chirikof Island.  I’ll just give you some of the things Tim told
  me that are not on the web, and you can Google Tim Jacobson and
  Chirikof Island if you want more details.  Tim is on the left in this shot.  The cowboy on the right is named Loni.

  There is a herd of feral cattle on the island.  It has been there
  since the late 1800s.  It is probably the healthiest cattle herd
  in the world.  It has never been subjected to growth hormones,
  never been exposed to BSE.  Tim has a contract with the feds to
  remove the cattle from the island, something many people have tried
  unsuccessfully to do.

  The reason for their removal is the mission of the U.S. Fish and
  Wildlife Service, protection of the nesting grounds of the shorebirds
  on the islands in the refuge.  It is a controversial mission there
  on Chirikof Island.  Many people would prefer to have the cattle,
  who have been there for more than a century–most of it without human caretakers–stay.

  Tim’s success thus far has been small, and his effort and expense quite
  large.  He told us he spent tens of thousands on legal fees to defend
  against an effort our governor made to lay claim to the herd (and the
  island, I think).  Tim won.  He now has an extension of his
  original contract and five more years to fulfill it.

  Meanwhile, as he spends his summers rounding up cattle out there, he’s
  working to get the regulations changed so that the herd can continue in
  peace.  He is also doing what he can to improve the herd. 
  Without human intervention, it has become about 60% bulls.  Life
  is hard for cows with so many bulls around.  Tim said the only
  significant hazards out there are some boggy areas where they can get
  stuck, and the brutality of the bulls.

  Tim is “banding” young bulls, using castration bands to turn them into
  steers.  Steers produce better meat and are less aggressive. 
  The meat on these cattle is very lean.  Tim describes it as more
  like elk than beef.  I haven’t tasted it yet, but he has promised
  to bring us a sample.  He has some for sale.  I don’t know
  how much he has, or his price, but if anyone is interested I will find
  out for you.

  
  When the state administration was making its grab for the island, they
  made a “documentary” in which the voiceover talked about how wild,
  intractible and uncontrollable the herd is.  The problem with that
  was that while the narrator was reading that script, the video was
  showing the cows standing around inside the fences Tim and his crew had
  built, with the island cowboys walking amongst them.

  There’s a story behind those fences, too.  Tim found the wreck of
  a barge on one of the island’s beaches.  Digging down through
  about 8 feet of silt and sand, he found lumber and barbed wire that had
  been preserved there for decades.

  I’ve been invited to the island for a visit this summer, to stay at
  the new ranch headquarters pictured below.  It might not be
  feasible, but it certainly is tempting.
  
  (Chirikof Island photos from AMNWR)
  

  • 11:06 pm
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