There is a show in one of the cable channels called Axe Men. It is about the lumber industry, I think in the Pacific North West. I don't really know, I've never really watched long enough to know where it takes place.
Today, Johnny and I got a chance to meet some local axe men. We climbed up the back tire of a sugar cane truck, edged along the side and into the back. After perhaps a half hour ride on some rough sugar roads we arrived where logs had been stacked by the side of the road.
Men had cut the timber about half a mile away, and carried the logs through a swamp to reach the road. No mechanical tree harvesters, no cranes, no chainsaws, just axes, bicycles and boots.
Once the logs were loaded onto the truck, the men hauled up their gear and rode the truck back with us. I understand that these logs are to become posts for a house made in the local tradition. They are a kind of wood that is sought after for posts as they are resistant to rot and termite damage.
On the way back, I was struck by the difference between these smiling timber men enjoying the breeze of the truck ride and the serious acting tough guys on the TV show Axe Men. I asked if I could take pictures of them and they were very agreeable to this. As the camera took aim, one man in the back moved so he would be in the shot too, despite the danger of leaning far from the wall of the truck on this bumpy road, and all the smiles vanished, and all the happy eyes locked on to some vague point in the distance. So I have a picture of some scary looking tough dudes.
There is no doubt that they are tough, Johnny and I lifted a few of those logs and they are a dense heavy tropical hardwood.
But these men who, to a significant extent, make their living by back breaking work in the forest are far more friendly and kind than they might appear in a photograph. One of the men, a bit older, and perhaps the toughest of the crew apparently felt no need to look the part and sat as if for a portrait.
The people here are universally certain that trees cut within three to five days before or after the full moon, last much longer than tress cut any other time. This belief is so widespread and so deeply held here that I am inclined to believe it, despite knowing that in other places such as Costa Rica, people believe that trees should be cut just prior to the new moon.
In any case, the Axe Men cut the timber in the two days before the full moon and delivered on the full moon. I am told they will cut beams on Monday, still within the proscribed time frame. Beams are thought to be best made of a different kind of tree than posts and they grow in a different location.
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