Over the last month I’ve been slowly working away at squaring up a big stringy back log that was burnt in the catastrophic fire that swept through here in December.

Our barn was badly burnt in that fire and we lost one corner, completely burnt out. As I stayed to defend our property from the flames. I was able to put out the flames after the fire swept through and I managed to save the barn. God knows how! The immense energy of the flames from the fire burnt everything in its path, but the roof and wall sprinklers on the barn were just enough to keep the building from bursting into flames, However embers lodged in the corner of the tin walls and set fire to the massive 300 x 300 mm. hard wood bridge timbers that I used as uprights.

It’s more or less impossible to set fire to a 300mm. square old hardwood timber post in any usual circumstance. However, if you have a once in a lifetime catastrophic fire fanned by 70 to 80 km/hr winds from the dry north, at 50 to 60oC , then anything is possible. The main fire front swept through burning almost everything in it’s path, I had taken refuse in my kiln for safety and didn’t dare emerge until after the main fire front had passed by. The yard and all the garden was ablaze. Every tree was on fire, thick smoke was everywhere. I come out of my kiln-like bunker. It took me some minutes standing under the house’s roof and wall sprinklers spray to cool off sufficiently to get my thoughts back in order. I realised that both the railway station and barn were both on fire fanned by the roaring wind.

I hosed out the station fire for the first time and ran to the barn carrying buckets of water, as the pump delivering water to the wall sprinklers on the barn had stopped working. There was no other pump or hose system over there on the opposite side of the property to use, so my immediate thought was to run there carrying buckets of tank water from the station tank. Each time I returned to the station, it was back on fire, as the insane wind had fanned the remaining embedded embers back into flames. I would put it out, then return to bucketing water to the barn. This cycle went on for an hour or two, until the station was well and truely out and although the barn was still smouldering, I had stopped the fire from spreading to the whole building. I eventually got it out, but the big corner posts, were almost completely reduced to charcoal.

So one of my on-going jobs over the past couple of months has been to set aside a large stringy bark tree trunk. I cut it to length and start to square it up to make a replacement square post for the corner of the barn. I got one face done, then I fell into the electrical cable trench and sprained my leg. That was the end of my timber milling efforts for a month or so,

I’m mostly well again now and this week I have come back to the job of squaring off the massive hardwood post. Extracting the square post from the curved, round log. I can only manage just one face each day, as It’s hard on my ageing back and shoulders.

Today I finished the last face. It’s pretty ugly, not exactly square, or smooth, but I don’t have the luxury of unlimited time to get it perfect. I have left most of the chainsaw depth cuts in the surface, as this indicates how it was made and is an honest surface for such a huge square post extracted from a curved round log.

While I was working today, adzing the final surface mostly flat. I was drawn to think of the timber cutters that worked these ridges and gullies 150 yers ago. I’m not a pimple on the arse of one of these hardy pioneers. They really knew how to work hard. My wimpy efforts are an embarrassment compared to the excellent quality of the sleepers that were snagged out of the Bargo gully behind us here in the 1850’s. All of their beautiful handiwork is gone. The last of the hand-cut sleepers have been replaced with steel sleepers now. The white ants and time took their toll. But what an achievement, these 50 kms of hand-hewn sleeper-laid train tracks that were felled, cut, adzed and broad axed into perfectly square clean shapes are just a memory. The snigging tracks that wound down into the gullies are all over grown and lost to memory now. But I remember them, Janine and I walked them in the 70’s when some of them were still visible, simply because some of the older locals still used them to get down into the creek.

My efforts don’t compare in any way, but hewing this square post into existence with just a small salute to the past has been a rewarding effort. The new corner post will hopefully tell someone in another generations time of the way in which it was made.

I have booked my friend, the local carpenter and environmentalist, Col McNeill to help me with the rebuilding. It will be a big effort for us to man-handle this massively heavy post into place, but that is next weeks job.