A Mountain Tale
by: Rabbit

Steve and Sue (not their real names) have a nice place in West Virginia. t's five acres with a creek and some bottomland that used to be an Indian village. They often find arrow heads and other artifacts. One unusual find is a thumb knife. This fits in the palm of your hand. The cutting edge comes out of the end, kind of like if you made a fist with your thumb stuck out. This area was alive with Indians before the small pox got them. I think you could find evidence of their occupation in any fertile bottomland with good water at the lower elevations. On the larger tributaries of the river floods have washed away all the original soil in some places so finding arrowheads there would be harder. The Indians of the large river watersheds had complex, highly organized societies capable of building large civil works as the numerous Indian Mounds in the areas show. People underestimate the power and wealth of the Indian Nations of the US. Small pox made short work of them before the European invaders penetrated to the interior of the country.

The remainder of Steve and Sue's place is a not too steep mountainside with a couple level areas covered with woods. Sue is particular about her plants. She plants and encourages native species and removes invaders. Steve tends the trees. They have some walnut, locust and American Hemlock. He culls the smaller ones and lets the big ones grow. Locust makes excellent posts and fence rails because it is rot resistant and will split into rails fairly easily. When it is dry it the best firewood you can find. I used to spend weeks in the woods cutting and splitting wood in the winter. I was hard work but I liked it. I love splitting wood. My favorite tool was a double bit ax that I could split a lot of stuff with. Man that's fun getting into the groove spread your feet, swing that ax, snap the wrist and "POP" the wood flies apart. Smaller locust is cut when it will make some poles depending on the need for them. Firewood comes from bigger trees and windfall. The largest trees or "mother trees" are cared for and never cut. It's a good system to supply wood for domestic needs.

Everyone has guns in West Virginia. It's no big deal. Shooting is fun and it puts good meat on the table. I used to hunt some. Anyone who has ever tasted squirrel would understand why a person would want to hunt. Guns are pampered tools and a new rifle coming into the house is a special occasion. Steve and Sue got a nice 8mm Mauser one day and decided to try it out so they painted up a target and propped it up against a tree. Steve got down on one knee, clicked off the safety, took aim and "kapow." Man that was a good shot. Powerful too and it tore the hell out of the tree. He tried it again but this time it split the tree so he gave it up as he wasn't ready for the work of dealing with a blown apart tree.

One day Steve decided to cut down a locust that was about 40 feet tall. It was a pretty little "Y" shaped tree. Felling trees in the woods can be tricky because you don't want them to get hung up in other trees or damage the "mother tree" but this locust did get hung up and it fell locked into the crotch of a small walnut. He figured that he could hand winch it free with a come along but it wouldn't come loose. "Hey Sue," he says "get me that chain. I'm gonna try something else to get this tree loose." So, Sue trots down to the house to get it and sees the Mauser, takes it up to Steve and says "Quit screwing around and shoot that sucker loose." So that's what he did. He shot a fat limb off the locust with one round and shot off the walnut limb with another. Two rounds and the locust tumbled neatly to the ground.

That's how Mauser pruning was born. If you have some deadwood or a widow maker hung up in a tree, call Steve. For a small fee he’ll blast them loose. No messy ropes, ladders or chain saws.

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