Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m still around. Just busy. And parenting. But, lucky you, my daughter’s sick with strep-throat on the sofa so it’s an “inside” day for me and I’ve got a few minutes for words. Speaking of the child, I got one of those great rites of parenting again today while taking her to the doctor’s office. Yeah, you know the story: “Dad, I think I’m going to throw up.” And before I could empty the change jar and give it to her – whoosh – the front-seat of the truck was – well – watered. This too shall pass.

On other matters, the barn-straightening project led to the sawmill project – getting my logs milled into some fine rough timbers for the next phase of Operation Save-the-Barn. So far, so good.

Another fine local fella, Wayne Richardson, and his trusty partner in the portable sawmill business, Roy Richardson, arrived last week to get the process going. Wayne’s 81 years-old and still working daily with the not-so-small sawmill he tows behind his truck to various sites around the region to make lumber out of logs. It’s quite impressive.

I’ve been sitting on a large pile of saw logs for a couple of years, a nice mix of hemlock, spruce, fir and some very wide pine. All of it was drawn out with my trusty horse, Big Jim, with the occasional help from his former partner, Big John (R.I.P.). And, oh yeah, my “mentor,” Boots, was kicking around the woods with me from time to time, too. [The previous sentence was inserted so as to prevent a snarky response to this post. Trust me, it won’t work – but I tried.]

I love the smell, look and feel of fresh-milled wood. I especially like the big timbers, the 6×6’s and 8×8’s – and most of what’s being cut for me now are 6×6’s that will be used for posts for the barn and, I hope, the frame for a sauna. And most of these are being milled out of the big and heavy hemlock logs. Rot resistant, for sure. But heavy as all hell, too. For now, though, they’re just nicely stacked, drying, and teasing me with all the possibilities: have wood, will build.

–

If I had the time for politics, I’d say this: Anthony Pollina has a lot of guts to venture into the realm of accusing Jim Douglas of making “false claims” about what he has and has not done. I’m speaking, of course, of the much-publicized Pollina press conference last week in which Vermont’s favorite loser cried foul over Douglas’ assertion that he helped create the local food movement. While I have no problem with the specific accusation, I’m going to – once again – fly the flag of hypocrisy over Camp Pollina.

If Pollina would like to make “false claims” a campaign issue, I’d suggest he duck and cover. There is, of course, that not-so-little issue of Pollina claiming to have “run” the Vermont Milk Company until, that is, the company stopped paying its farmers and the red ink out-massed the milk. At this point, Pollina conveniently changed his official campaign biography from “running” the company to merely “helping” some farmers get it going.

Yes, Anthony, let’s talk about “false claims,” and we could start with yours.

Lucky for Pollina that the Vermont media has decided to ignore his little biography-gate – for now. The word on the street is that some journalists are finally starting to poke around into the dismal financial story of the Vermont Milk Company. It shouldn’t be hard for them to figure out that Pollina’s wealthy donor friends are propping up this non-organic milk company so that it doesn’t completely shut its doors during the campaign. It also shouldn’t be hard for them to find out that the more viable food ventures in the Vermont Milk Company’s neighborhood – Hardwick – have been eying the failing milk company’s facility with the understanding that it will most certainly be available – oh – after November.

You heard it here first.

–

Finally, to those who’ve inquired about why I didn’t attend last weekend’s Burlington Blogger BBQ, I only have this say: Because they make blogging look very unhealthy. ‘Nuf said.