FLCC> 3 S's training clinic report

[Glenn Swan]

	Saturday's weather forecast was for rain and wind, and indeed it was 
looking pretty grim when I got up in the morning. I noted to myself that I 
wouldn't hold it against anybody if they chose not to come out for the 
work-party in such conditions, and did a little rough math in my head, 
calculating how long it would probably take my housemate and me to do all 
of the wood cutting, splitting and stacking by ourselves. (the number was 
too big for me to add up...) After breakfast I got things started, setting 
up the "stations" for the various steps in processing wood. To my great 
relief, a few people rolled in the driveway and announced that they were 
ready to start working. There seemed to be some consensus that although it 
wasn't the kind of day you really looked forward to, clouds and occasional 
light showers were better suited to doing wood than most of our other usual 
weekend options. We got ourselves started and to our surprise and delight, 
a caravan of cars just started rolling in, disgorging workers with 
attitudes and weapons of destruction. I would like to be able to list 
everyone by name and say thank you to each and every one, but there were so 
many that I would no doubt leave some out. They came from the FLCC, the CU 
Cycles group, my general customer base from the bike shop, and perhaps a 
few from the local homeless population who had heard about Marcia's Chili, 
Mac-n-cheese, and cookies, not to mention the rumors that Sandy Fitterer 
would be there with her famous cookies as well ! We were all well-fed, and 
Marcia got some extra work out of a few of the guys by filling them with 
espresso - you should see how fast Dave Ruppert and Jack Rueckheim can move 
when wired with caffeine ! We had two, and sometimes three chainsaws 
running at a time, cutting logs to stove-length. These are the guys who you 
may notice, are a little bit hard of hearing this week.... There were 
others who ran the hydraulic splitter, or who claimed small areas of the 
yard for their own, flailing away with an assortment of manual splitters, 
sometimes debating the merits of heavy-versus-light splitting mauls and the 
physics of F=MxA. These are the guys who are moving slowly and having 
trouble bending over this week. There was a small army of others who were 
constantly running around collecting the split wood from every station and 
ferrying it into the woodshed. These are the people who slept in yesterday 
and may be moving a bit slowly even today. Even Lilynn was there, complete 
with a migraine - can you imagine anything worse for a migraine than the 
noise and smell of chainsaws ? I think she was practicing her suffering for 
next summer's TT series. (watch out Andy M ! Lilynn's got you in her 
sights. If pure suffering equates to speed, you'll be dead meat !) There 
were enough people, and they were so efficient that we eliminated the 
mountain of logs by lunch break. After that, there was little left to do 
besides look for missing persons in the mud holes that had been concealed 
by the log pile. As far as we can tell, all workers, children and dogs have 
been accounted for at this time.
	Ithaca is a special place, and our friends are very special people. I 
can't think of very many places where such a group of people can be drawn 
together for so much hard work in such conditions, and have fun doing it. I 
am very thankful to be a part of such a community of individuals. Some 
people have wondered how we can be so willing to let "strangers" ski, hike, 
race bikes, and do other things on our land when the society's norm seems 
to be worrying about liability and fencing the rest of the world out. I 
think the answer is here - "those people" are our friends ! There is a warm 
place next to the wood stove for all of them whether we have skied, 
snowshoed, or are covered with mud from mountain biking or doing a 'cross 
race.  Thank you all for coming out.

Sincerely,

Glenn and Marcia