Asked how he got into hauling logs, Earl Shatney says, "Oh...that was my dumb spell." So why, after 35 years, is he still trucking timber? "I enjoy it, I do!"

On a clear, breezy 75-degree Vermont summer day with low humidity and no bugs, logging would seem the ideal occupation: delightful weather, no bosses and a long view of green hills and picturesque farms. Out of mind are January's frozen fingers and March's mud.

Weather rules

"It's a hard living," says Earl's wife Wilma. "The weather dictates what we do." Winter, hardest on humans and machines, is the best time for cutting timber; trees hold the least moisture then. Skidding logs out of the forest is easier, too, because snow makes slides of the usually muddy and deeply rutted trails through the woods.

For Earl, winter brings the challenge of maneuvering his rig farther into the forest to more remote landings, crawling over narrow, overgrown, slippery woods roads that are completely impassable in other seasons.

After chill and chains comes the mud which shuts down all logging operations. This year, spring thaw and Mud Season, the fifth division of northern New England's calendar, came early. Secondary roads in the Montpelier, Vt., area where Earl was working were closed to vehicles over six tons from Feb. 23 until May 1, five weeks longer than usual. Heavy vehicles are banned in order to protect road surfaces from damage while the ground is thawing.

Then a rainy spring kept the ground wet and woods roads too muddy to skid logs out until after June 1. Meanwhile, equipment payments on their 1998 Western Star 4964FX and 45 ft BWS flatbed with $30,000 Prentice l20E log loader continued for E. Shatney & Sons Trucking.

From forest to flatbed

The 200-acre Northfield, Vt., land from which Earl is currently hauling logs is part of 25 million acres of northeastern forest damaged by a January 1998 ice storm. Ice on twigs increased their weight anywhere from 16 to 159 times normal, according to University of Vermont foresters. Limbs and crowns of trees were broken, and in some areas ice was so heavy that trees were uprooted or their trunks snapped. [Slide 28] Removing ice-damaged trees can be extremely hazardous to conventional chain saw operators to whom hanging pieces present constant danger.

Tom Lincoln of T. B. Lincoln Logging, Roxbury, Vt., sits in the cab of his $350,000 Timbco T 445-B Hydro-Buncher (also known as a tree shear) as it grabs, holds and cuts trees from the Northfield plot. Some of the trees are ice damaged, others undamaged or in the way of paths being cleared for recreational purposes. The tree shear's hydraulically powered 22-inch carbide-tipped saw zips through the trunks, taking a 3-inch thick piece from each. The tree shear gulps 10 to 11 gallons of diesel fuel an hour from its 180-gallon tank, and it runs eight or nine hours a day, five days a week, nine to 10 months a year.

Newly cut trees, still held by the shear, are moved to small piles. (When Lincoln is cutting a specific kind of tree for a specific end use, he uses the tree shear's computerized processing head, a $60,000 component, to delimb the trees and cut them to a predetermined length.)

Two skidders, akin to bucket loaders but without the bucket, alternate in picking up a bunch of trees and dragging it down the steep, rutted path to the landing. On the landing, the logs are cut to length by the 60-inch saw of a loader/slasher. The loader/slasher operator sorts the logs into piles according to type of wood and intended use. The piles (from most valuable to least) are hardwood, softwood, pulp and chips.

Picking and pulling

From atop their 13-foot log loader (also called a cherrypicker) with its 22-foot reach, either Earl or his 15-year-old son, Jeff, moves logs from one of several huge wood piles on the landing onto their stakebed trailer. The skidder/loader operator initially sorted these logs, but not all are suitable for this load's intended use as 2-by-4s. The practiced eyes of Earl and Jeff spot hardwood, bony logs (logs with too many knots), and logs with soft heartwood and set them aside. Loading of sorted piles takes 40 to 45 minutes; unsorted piles longer.

In Derby, Vt., about 90 miles from Northfield, Earl will unload the logs one by one so a mill employee can scale (measure) the number of board feet in each. Earl unloads either directly onto the ground or onto a truck destined for a mill in Quebec. "The Canadians can haul it cheaper than I can," explains Earl. The same is true of processing the timber: The logs Earl hauls to Derby will be milled in Quebec — and then may be returned to the U.S. as dimension lumber.

From the mixed forest in Northfield, Earl hauls to seven places. Cherry, the most valuable wood, goes to Hartland, Vt., to be made into furniture. White birch is made into dowels and handles in Moscow, Vt. Hardwood 8- to 16-feet long is used for manufacturing flooring, veneer and furniture in Bristol, Vt. Softwood 8- to 16-feet long goes to Derby, Vt., to be made into dimension lumber. Eight-foot logs unsuitable for dimension lumber are hauled to a papermill near Watertown, N.Y. Some lesser quality logs go to Shelburne, N.H., where they are chipped for use by a papermill in Rumford, Maine.

Measuring payment

The amount Earl makes on each load for T. B. Lincoln Logging is based on mileage and on the quality of the logs he hauls. Backhauls are rare. A load of cherry will earn him — and the logger and landowner — more than a load of pulpwood.

However, Earl never knows until he gets to a mill exactly how much he will be paid for the load he has just hauled. At the mill, the law of supply and demand will also come into play. If the mill needs the type of logs Earl is carrying, those logs will be more valuable than if the mill is overstocked.

In addition, different mills measure logs in different ways and may also be more or less generous depending on their needs. One mill recently dropped the price it was paying for spruce logs by $30 per 1,000 board feet. To Earl, this meant $240 less than he had anticipated. Wilma Shatney sums it up: "It's like basketball. You're jumping up and down all the time."

Although weight isn't a primary factor in how much Earl earns, it's still something he has to take into account. Logs retain more moisture in summer than in winter, and estimating the weight of each load he hauls is a matter of Earl's long years of experience. Although loads destined for use as pulp or chips are weighed, they are not weighed until they reach their destination. Some years back, Earl learned Vermont police can help with that issue. The $3,600 he was fined for being overweight was, as he puts it, "A good, high price education."

Adaptable and versatile

Earl has hauled as an independent for T. B. Lincoln for some 16 years and as an employee for six years before that. Although he trucks primarily for Lincoln, Earl also fits in loads for three other small producers. One, at 67, chainsaws about a truckload a week. Now 89, Earl's father Carroll Shatney also logged until recently.

Several years ago, the Shatneys bought a straight truck and Wilma got her CDL. It was a wet year, and Lincoln did not get as many logs as he had anticipated. Although Earl and Wilma appreciated the maneuverability of the straight truck, they settled on a tractor and flatbed for reasons of flexibility.

When logging is slow, Earl can hook onto a box van or other trailer and pull seeds, round hay bales, packaged fertilizer, and even the famous white Lipizzaner stallions whose summer home is nearby. The Shatneys credit their truck dealer and mechanic, J. B. International of Colchester, Vt., with helping them find fill-in loads.

"She just took off!"

Although money and weather are always uncertainties, Earl also knows there can be true surprises. Parked on an icy landing one winter day in 1995, he was loaded and getting ready to go. Then, as now, his log loader was mounted in the center of the flatbed, supported when parked by a pair of outriggers. As he was pulling up the outriggers, "She left! She just took off!" Earl leaped from the cherrypicker. Standing in the snow, stunned but otherwise unhurt, he watched as his rig ran away without him.

Hot tires that cooled were the probable cause. When he parked on the icy landing, the rig's tires were warm. While he loaded logs onto his flatbed, the tires cooled. As the tires cooled, they melted a thin layer of ice beneath them, further slicking the already icy surface. When Earl pulled up the stabilizing outriggers, there was nothing to hold his rig. And that was the end of Earl Shatney's first purple truck.