The Littlest Supervisor

A number of years ago, 1979 to be exact, when Bob’s parents were still living out in the country, the guys had a permit to cut down some dead trees in the Shirley Mountains. A bunch of us made several trips up and spent the day cutting and loading those trees onto the flatbed trailer my father-in-law owned. It was always a project that took the whole day, and plenty of help. We came back with several good sized loads of wood. Then came the real work. Cutting all that wood into usable sizes to burn in our wood stoves took many days.

At that time, my father-in-law had a big buzz saw to cut the wood with. It took two people to get the wood on the table that ran the log to the saw. One day, Bob and his dad were working on cutting the wood, and since we lived on the same property at the time, because our land wasn’t ready to move onto yet, our kids were there too. They loved being around all the activity that went on at their grandparent’s house. From raising a couple of cows to cutting wood, there was always something going on.

Corrie had come down to the wood pile to watch the cutting process…or maybe to be the supervisor. It was really the only job a little girl of 4 years could do, so they set her up on one of the bigger logs that had been cut, and she supervised the whole project for quite a while. I’m quite sure that in between all the sawing, Corrie probably talked the guys’ ears off too, if I know my girl. Corrie has always been an organizer…even as a little girl, when she tried to straighten a neighbor’s counter up, because it was a little unorganized. As a supervisor, Corrie was simply in her element.

Of course, at 4 years old, Corrie got bored with the work world, and decided that it was time for a break. That happened about the time that the cat, Dusty showed up and seemed to need a little bit of attention. Corrie decided that she would have to be the one to entertain Dusty and keep her out of trouble, because as we all know, cats tend to get in the way of the work. They always want to rub up against you, and that simply won’t do when the men are trying to cut wood. Dusty could be in real danger of getting stepped on. Eventually, Corrie would go back to her supervisory job, but only when Dusty decided that it was time to go find something to eat, and a nice shady place to nap.