The Totem Pole - 407 words
The Totem Pole The year Laurie turned fifty she carved a totem pole. The work started in the winter, but the process began long before that when we travelled to British Columbia. Much of that vacation was spent on totem pole research. We watched native carvers, studied the tools, saw examples in museums, and she bought books.
My part in the project started the fall before the carving began. We had an escarpment behind our house in Owen Sound, and our first step was to cut down a tree to be carved. It didn’t go as planned.
We chose a nice live evergreen, bare all the way up to a number of branches at the top. We didn’t have a chain saw back then, so I cut it with a bow saw. Of course the blade got stuck and we spent some time freeing it, but eventually we managed to get it to fall, unfortunately it stuck in some other trees before reaching the ground. After a lot of cursing, pulling on ropes and other pointless exercises we chose a tree that was already on the ground, cut off a chunk, and stored it behind the house where it sat until the winter. At Christmas I bought Laurie a small electric chain saw.
In the dead of winter, we brought the chunk into the back room while it was still frozen and set it up on sawhorses. The next step was to notch the back to stop the tree from splitting. Laurie is timid with power tools that cut, so it was my job to use the chain saw. Under her direction I cut the log to length and started on the notch. I had cut one side and was re-positioning the wood when I noticed the carpenter ants dropping out of the end of the log.
I called frantically for Laurie and grabbed a pail to catch the escapees. I was stomping madly at the ants that were crawling across the floor when Laurie arrived.
“Ant poison,” I screamed at her. She disappeared again.
The little things were groggy at first. I killed some, but the more I stomped the more awake they became until we were dancing all over the floor. Laurie arrived back with the poison. My son’s shows up. She sprayed. We stomped. It was mayhem, but eventually every ant we could see was dead. The screams and the boy’s laughter died away.
End© Dave Skinner 2017
My part in the project started the fall before the carving began. We had an escarpment behind our house in Owen Sound, and our first step was to cut down a tree to be carved. It didn’t go as planned.
We chose a nice live evergreen, bare all the way up to a number of branches at the top. We didn’t have a chain saw back then, so I cut it with a bow saw. Of course the blade got stuck and we spent some time freeing it, but eventually we managed to get it to fall, unfortunately it stuck in some other trees before reaching the ground. After a lot of cursing, pulling on ropes and other pointless exercises we chose a tree that was already on the ground, cut off a chunk, and stored it behind the house where it sat until the winter. At Christmas I bought Laurie a small electric chain saw.
In the dead of winter, we brought the chunk into the back room while it was still frozen and set it up on sawhorses. The next step was to notch the back to stop the tree from splitting. Laurie is timid with power tools that cut, so it was my job to use the chain saw. Under her direction I cut the log to length and started on the notch. I had cut one side and was re-positioning the wood when I noticed the carpenter ants dropping out of the end of the log.
I called frantically for Laurie and grabbed a pail to catch the escapees. I was stomping madly at the ants that were crawling across the floor when Laurie arrived.
“Ant poison,” I screamed at her. She disappeared again.
The little things were groggy at first. I killed some, but the more I stomped the more awake they became until we were dancing all over the floor. Laurie arrived back with the poison. My son’s shows up. She sprayed. We stomped. It was mayhem, but eventually every ant we could see was dead. The screams and the boy’s laughter died away.
End© Dave Skinner 2017
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