Losing As Fast As Marking

Way back when I first started making the exact 16 inch chunks of firewood for the project, I found that the typical grease pencil that professional woodworkers use to be cumbersome and ineffective when the wood was wet from freezing, snow, rain and even dew. The grease or wax that make up the pencils would not mark clear enough to see when the saw was ready to cut. That was when I tried the old standby of regular Crayola Chalk the exact same one used by school children.

I was feeling rather bold and daring the day I picked up my first package of chalk to see how well it would work for my project so I grabbed a box of mixed colored chalk instead of the basic white. I have chuckled to myself since, every time I would use the vibrant colors I felt like I was showing off rather than just working through a stack of logs. Bright pink would jump out at me, blue would beckon to be cut, green would act cool and aloof, while yellow and orange vied to get may attention. It made me feel rather bold about my decision and so I kept refilling my supply with the colors.

The last time I was in a store and remembered I needed to pick up some more chalk, I found that the peg for the colored pieces had been empty. The stores are gearing up for back to school and many of the office supplies were low or empty as they awaited the newest shipment. The white chalk peg was full of boxes so with a sigh of resignation that I was about to become very plain, I purchased a box of white chalk to use for my project.

Once at home and working on a day of marking and cutting, I realized that the white chalk did not show up on the bark nearly as well as the bold colors did. I would have expected white to stand out on brown bark, but didn’t realize the texture and multi-hues of bark blend in with the stark white, especially on the younger tops of the trees I had in the landing.

Over and over I would have to re-chalk the pieces that I wanted to cut and made a note to myself to remember to be bold the next time I head into the office supply aisle.