Artifacts

Hello Friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Logging Dog”. If you’reinterested in a copy please use the contact instructions at the bottom of the page.

Somewhere in the distant past the forest echoes with the voice of the foreman mingled with either the whine of chainsaw motor or the thump of axes being driven into the boles. The crackle of limbs breaking and thunderous crash echoes through the mountains as a giant falls to the earth. The tree lands with the precision of a master archer’s winning bullseye. The lumber will go to mill where it will become part of School, home, church or any number of beloved objects made from wood. Worn out by the heavy labor the lumberjacks begin to gather their tools leaving the undergrowth to mature for the next fifty years or so. When done properly the harvest will actually improve the overall health and diversity of the forests and for now the last mature tree has been taken. And beneath the broken limbs and scattered leaves there are artifacts left behind.

Fast forward a few decades and you’ll see my father improving a trail that cuts through the back of property. He spots something in spoil cast aside by blade of his tractor. The short section of heavy chain has a spike on one end that’s designed to be driven into a log like an anchor. The artifact is called a logging dog and it’s used to drag logs to landing where they are loaded into the truck. It was a valuable tool for whoever left it behind but now it’s a treasured conversation piece in my Dad’s collection. It makes me wonder why we are drawn to things like warped and weathered wood or rusty chunks of metal. Sometimes it’s a lost item like the logging dog or the axe head that I found in the same area several years before he found the chain. Other times it’s a discarded item like an antique soda bottle that a camper no longer needed. Such things as old canning jars and antique medicine bottles have a value on the open market. There was a time when a young man person could excavate a makeshift dump and carry out a little spending money in the form of unbroken glass and rusted iron. Recently I rediscovered a rusted item that I pulled out of the creek. The photos I posted on a Facebook Forum are below.

While not as artistic as I like to post the “mystery object” has conjured up guesses of everything from lost confederate treasures to counter weighs for a barn door. ( I believe that counter weight theory is in lead)

Whatever it is it has the same appeal as the logging dog. It’s a connection to the past. It was a part of someone’s everyday life and witness to history.

I enjoy keeping my eyes open when I’m nearby old job sites and forgotten places. Nice finds like antique blue mason jars are going to be a pretty rare find these days and most of stuff I spot aren’t really worth picking up except to dispose of it properly but occasionally I find something unique enough to at least try to figure out what it was when it was new.

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