How cold was it?

Out 'N The Woods Again

This past winter we had some normal cold spells. It's winter in Montana folks. Watching the TV and to hear the weather people ramble on you'd think we lived in the Arctic. Oh, that's right all the ice is melting up there. Those folks spend most of their working days go'n from a heated house to a heated car, to a heated workplace. Those who log or work over in North Dakota know what hardship in the workplace is, don't ya see?

I can remember a couple of bad ones.

Many moons ago I was working over the other side of Roger's Pass for Jim Farra. I'd rented a cabin in Lincoln, ran a cord out the door to plug in the Pu---50 below one morning.

I should have known better.

I let the truck run for half an hour, the windshield defrosted half way up, so away I went. As I got near the pass, the frost kept creep'n down the windshield till there was only a couple of inches I could see through. Then side the road I saw the sign--- "coldest recorded spot in the Continental US, 70 or was it 74 below zero?" Anyway, what's four degrees when it gets to 70 below I sez to myself.

Jim didn't think we should do this but he started the D6 anyway. How he got it started I'll never know. I went to cutt'n and blew up the piston in my saw. Back at the pu Jim had picked up the blade and snapped off a blade cylinder. Sez Jim, "No logs today and no payday." We left the job to the wind and drifting snow till a warmer day.

And then, me and Eldon Rammell once worked over near Ovando in the dead of winter. Back in them there days there was a Cenex where we stopped in the morning. Once inside the man sez, "Where you fellers headed today? It's 37 below?" We made some joke about bare cupboards at home and the kids need boots.

A few days later the heater went out on my PU half way to the job. With one eye out the window to see where we were go'n, I couldn't help it and I got to laugh'n. I sez "Rammell, some day we'll die and then we won't have to do this anymore."

 

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