70 Logging in the Blue Mountains with the Bees

My summer employment was not always what I wanted it to be but the summer of ’66 was especially interesting. I was able to find work with a gypo logger who was logging in the Blue Mountains just over the state line in Oregon. George Manson was a small town logger, who happened to be looking for an experienced faller just when school was out for the summer. I was quite happy to start work for him as soon as my last test was completed. Gypo loggers find wood wherever they can get it, which means they move around a lot from one small private sale to the next.

My job was to start falling trees as soon as we hit a new show so the skidder operator, Ron McCoy could immediately start hauling them out to the landing with the John Deere skidder. George bucked and then loaded the 16-foot logs onto a logging truck to be hauled to a stud mill in Walla Walla.

The part I liked just as much as falling was helping Ron clean up when the last tree was on the ground. George had an old Allis-Chalmers 18 tractor and he let me run it until all the trees were finally hauled to the landing. I remember some areas were so steep that I had to reverse steer down the hills. A steep slope also made it very difficult to turn around. To keep from sliding and maybe rolling the tractor, it was necessary to pivot around the nearest stump. I can still remember coming down some of the steep slopes with five or six full length trees sliding into the back of the tractor, and me, desperately trying to prevent it from jackknifing. It sometimes got a bit scary.

We usually think of danger when falling trees as coming from the trees themselves or maybe getting seriously injured by the power saw. One day however just as a tree I was felling began to fall I felt a sharp stinging sensation down my neck and took off running the opposite direction from the tree as I realized I was standing on a wasp’s nest. I ran madly through the woods as I could see the wasps following me in the sunlight. Just as I had stopped thinking I was safe I got another sting. Altogether I receive three yellow jacket stings and I never found the nest.

A few days later we were working in a different area and it seemed that half the trees had a wasp’s nest somewhere near by. I still remember when Ron ran into a nest with his skidder and a number of wasps actually attacked the skidder. I will never forget watching yellow jackets trying to sting the dozer blade. They also went after Ron and stung him seven or more times, and as he was allergic to their stings we had to quite for the day.

It seemed George had an unwritten protocol about bee trees. If bees happened to be in a tree that was felled the operation came to a sudden halt while he and Ron gathered round and the faller cut out the nest while the bees in the meantime were wildly buzzing round by the thousands. My only defense was to open the needle valve and make my power saw smoke as much as possible. Why I never got stung I will never know.

It was fortunate for me that Ron was the actual honey robber designate. Here would be Ron sitting there with his shirt open at the collar, his shirt sleeves unbuttoned, and bees crawling all over his head, face and arms while he calmly reached in and pulled out big pieces of honeycomb. Why he would do that when he was allergic to their stings I will never know. Come to think of it, I guess I do know; he never seemed to get stung from bees. It was not until things had settled down a bit that George and I would go in to get some of the booty.

Over the years until I finished my education I worked for many gypo loggers and one thing that was common among most of them was how to get reliable help. It was not that loggers as a whole are lazy or undependable but many of them had a serious drinking problem. I felt sorry for Ron McCoy who’s wife had left him with his new born child because he only lived for booze. His life completely revolved around booze. He always kept beer in the door pockets of his Ford pickup and would crack one open the minute we jumped in after work. I used to ride to work with him and most of the time he smelled like a brewery. After spending his nights in a pub until closing it was anybody’s guess as to what woman he had gone home with for the night. This sometimes made it difficult to know where to phone so I could roust him out so we could get to work on time. One morning on the way to work we ended up in the ditch. I felt fortunate neither of us got hurt. On looking back I suppose I was foolish for riding with him.

George was a crusty old logger, but I liked working for him even though I wished I had asked for more money at the beginning of the season. I really couldn’t complain as treated me OK and before I knew it, the summer was over and I was back at college.