Timber Jones

By Timber Jones It is easy to sit here on the back porch on days like this, days when the wind blows strong and carries with it random thoughts that are gone as quickly as they come. Raindrops tap unevenly on the metal roof of the cabin. A bright red cardinal tries his level best…

By Timber Jones There was a time in my life when I needed to get out of the work I had been doing for the past 18 years. It was no longer the job I felt I should be in and I wanted something new. This brought me to a place in the old Ozark…

By Timber Jones My life has been built on hard times. I am all too familiar with the deep woods of life. Rock bottom is a whole lot further down than some folks think, but for me it was so low that no one could or wanted to reach down to help me anymore. There…

High in the north woods of the Yukon there lives a great lumberjack by the name of Jack Evergreen.  He lives alone in a log cabin that his great-grandfather built many years ago.  Smoke always pours out of the chimney as it is very cold where Jack lives.  Inside the cabin is only a bed,…

By Timber Jones In the fall of the year, my lumberjack soul awakens. For the next six months, my chores revolve around the felling, limbing, and bucking of trees. It all begins in the evening within the walls of my shop. By the glow of lantern light I take grindstone in hand and sharpen my…

By Timber Joseph Jones I grew up on a river at the foot of a mountain in the Hudson Highlands.  As the river wound around the mountains and out of sight, I often wondered where it flowed.  It was here that the seeds of a searching spirit were sowed.  Although I didn’t know yet what…

In a story I read of an immigrant recalling his first impression of America, he said, “The coastline was rugged; like the American men themselves.” Oh, how things have changed. Traditional masculinity is on a sharp decline.  100 years ago, Theodore Roosevelt made the observation that “Men are becoming too office bound, too complacent, too…

By Timber Joseph Jones Nothing that I have is my own. It is all for the next generation. In my shop hangs an axe that will one day go to the man my daughter marries. Another axe will go to my nephew. I look forward to handing them over at the right time. In my…