EPISODE 286 MASSEY FERGUSON DEMOLITION THE JOHN CALDER SAWMILL, BELLWOOD, ONTARIO
alan skeoch
March 2021
“Alan, if you ever need some logs cut into planks, bring them up to the farm.”
John did not have to ask twice. On week ends i began moving my Massey Harris beams
from Toronto to Bellwood. And then the nice part happened. I spent several days
helping John convert old factory posts into nice white pine planks which we then
fed into his planer.
Saw dust and wood chips peppered the air and on some days the wood chip shower
was interspersed with snow flakes. It was ‘the best of times’. Unforgettable.
Especially when the milling was halted for a few hours so the lambing could be assisted if
a ewe needed help getting the little lamb into the open air. Then there was milking time
which took precedence over everything. The Holstein herd had to be milked on s
a regular schedule. The Calder/Townsend herd bellowed at milking time. Painfull. Could
not be delayed. Seven days a week job. Imagine trying to tend a flock of sheep, a dairy herd and a saw mill
all on the same day.
John had his flock of sheep. Eleanor had her herd of cattle. There lives were contained within that framework
from which there was no desire to escape. Morning, day, and night labour. No time to waste? Not quite true for there were
hours in the daytime when the saw mill could be put into operation. Those were my moments.
Some Massey Harris beams ready for the saw mill after we made sure there
wer no nails. Jus one nail could damage the saw blade. Most small saw mills
will not accept used wood beams…nor will they accept logs from city trees
lest there be a fence bolt or worse buried in the log.
The wood grain streaks, along with blemishes from long gone branching points, made the southern pitch
pine planks, in my mind, an imaginary terrain of farm fields freshly furrowed but interrupted by granite
boulders pushed down here by glaciers that towered above the land pushed and pushing those stones.
John had other jobs than mine such as this gargantuan piece. John was not a man to waste things. Even the towering skeletal
dead elms on his farm were worth salvaging. Once put through his saw mill the spoliated elm planks had a beauty all their own.
John used these planks with their ghostly markings to clothe the interior walls of the stone house he had almost completed.
I am not sure why John is threatening to eat here.
END: THE JOHN CALDER SAW MILL, BELLWOOD, ONTARIO.
NEXT: EPISODE 287: WHAT THE CALDER FAMILY WERE DOING OTHER THAN SAWING WOOD
alan skeoch
March 2021
SAMPLES OF WOOD QUILTS MADE FROM WOOD SCRAPS
Post Script Just a couple of my Wooden Quilts to remind readers that there
was an end use of some of this rescued lumber. Small bits and pieces captured
my imagination so often. It began with a crumpled sections of snow fence on Uncle
Norman’s farm. Each piece of distressed lath looked like a dark and foreboding
sky. A little polishing with the belt sander and shaping with the band saw and… ‘Presto’… the
busted snow fence pieces became something real.
I made this one in remembrance of an attack on John Calder’s sheep by ‘pet’ dogs…story
coming in an Episode
These large pictures now hang above fireplace at home and on wall at farm
This is an old school near Thornbury… enclosed in a white pine forest.