February, 2003

Seems I ought to share my day with you. There are days that just call out for the sharing and this was one of them. We live right in the middle of Europe, in the Czech Republic about eighty miles straight north of Prague, in the mountains that are snugged up against Poland. I pretend to be a writer here and people pretend to take me seriously.

I walked Barkley, our six year old Labrador, late this morning, up along the creek road past our little local ski area and on up toward the reservoir. We haven't been this way for almost a month, our tours instead up past the pension that stands several hundred yards above us, then circling further up and around on the blacktop road. It hasn't been visibly blacktop for months now either, packed snow instead and well plowed, easy to walk.

A good friend asked me just the other day if I wasn't ready to "retire" to a warm climate, but I am a winter man in my bones. I enjoy spring, tolerate summer, love the fall, but my special season is winter and its wood fires, heavy snows and the solitude of long days dark.

Anyway, Barkley was true to his Labrador spirit today, taking frequent wriggling snow baths, nosing this and snuffling out that, being particularly patient with my human requirement that he sit as occasional cars passed. Beyond the ski lift, there's no need of that as the road ends and it's closed to all but loggers and cross-country skiers from there up. We didn't go all the way up, something I reserve for New Year's Eve and occasional guests who want to wear themselves out.

But they've been logging for a week, five or six hundred yards up and, it being Saturday, we came upon a solitary man with two lovely draft horses and his German shepherd, snaking logs down to the road. They still do that here, when they're selectively logging instead of the increasingly cost-effective clear cuts that scar our mountains as they do all mechanically lumbered areas back in America. We have two men in our little village who trailer out pairs of draft horses behind their tractors for just this purpose. But I don't often see them at work, more usually confined to a wave as I pass in the car. So, today was a treat and I wished I'd had a camera. Maybe I'll go back.

He worked his horses down a skid-path, muddied and churned by their hoofs and the fallen timber they pulled, one behind the other, he and the dog following and not a word spoken until the bottom. The first time down, he chooses a sightline path without too many drops, one they can manage and he leads, chuckling the Czech language at them as they follow. After that, he merely accompanies to see that nothing goes amiss, chaining up at one end, unchaining at the other. Once they know the route, the horses know the work and all follows from there. It's as amazing to me as watching sheep-dogs work a flock, this absolute communication and respect between man and animal.

There were difficulties with the lead-horse log when they got down to the stack. The butt dug in and caught, this huge chestnut gelding unable to get footing enough to move it and "stumped." Maybe that's where the term comes from. Man and animal, they worked it out together patiently, neither losing their cool, the woodman speaking softly and never touching his horse. The second horse stood waiting behind, without much interest. If you're looking for an inquisitive animal, a horse is a poor choice. A few cross-country skiers piled up, their run down from the reservoir interrupted by the blockage. Like me, they watched, fascinated. Like me, they will tell this story. The gelding turned uphill and jerked, hooves churning in the thawed ground, came back around and lunged, backed off and waited. Tried a different direction and the log rolled a half-roll, came free and moved. Together, they got it lined up with the pile and Barkley and I moved on as well. This work didn't need a crowd.

Further up, it flattens to a small meadow and even though it was still selective cutting, loggers were able to use four-wheel drive tractors. The area was understandably churned up in wide arcs and cross-arcs. Without doubt it was a more economic moving of timber, but without romance, without the quiet words and understanding between man and animal. They don't work Saturdays, these machinery guys. When we came back down-trail, it was lunch break and horses heads were deep within oat buckets, the shepherd worrying some scraps and the man eating a sandwich, his back turned to the trail as if he wished to be deeper into the woods.

This small miracle on an ordinary dog-walk has stuck with me all day and I somehow feel compelled to tell you about it. As if the telling will preserve it in amber, because you and I both know this day is submitting to modern methods and there are no young men learning the work. As I write "learning the work," I'm struck by the fact that this is work at its most honest. Not the job we do, not the place we put in our hours for a fee, but the cooperation between man and animal that our great grandfathers would have instantly recognized.

Four hundred yards toward home, the modern world revealed itself (as if I'd thought it gone or wished it gone). The parking area jammed with cars, lines at the lift, skiers carving down the mountain to be mechanically towed back up for another run. They'll be high spirited tonight, then relaxed around a fire or at dinner, eager for tomorrow and totally unaware of what transpired a quarter mile up the trail. As I might have been, if Barkley hadn't tired of the same old walk and urged me elsewhere. I mark it as a wonderful day and one of the reasons that keep me rooted to this country.

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