Deming Logging Show "for Busted Up Loggers"

This last Saturday we had an afternoon with no plans and sunshine in the forcast. M suggested that we go check out the Deming Logging Show, an annual event put on "for the benefit of busted up loggers." It was somewhere between a county fair and redneck truck show. Campers and trailers lined the soggy field around the fairgrounds. Driving up, we could see lines of spit-polished, impossibly chromed Kenworth, International, and Mack dump trucks. Boom spars lifted sky high pointed us to the parking area as we pulled in. We followed the echoing speaker and found seats in the grandstands...

The logging show site had all sorts of local and logging memorabilia around it. We saw logger memorials to fallen friends, including a tree stump with heavy, awkward-looking chainsaws stabbed into it by their bars. There were also silly projects that looked like they started with "wouldn't it be funny if..." between friends on a quiet weekend. Paul Bunyan's chair, a "chain" saw, and a "2 man ax" in the double-ended style of a 2 man saw.

One of my favorite parts was an area where an old steam tractor was puffing away. A thick belt ran off of it to power a 24" buzz-saw lumber mill. there were also a series of small, reciprocating bucking saws being demo'd. They looked slower than a one man bucking saw, but they could run all day. The chain drives with sprockets and flywheels reminded me of something Grandpa would have built in his shop!

 We spent most of our time watching the Logger Relay. Different logging outfits competed to be the first to grab a choker (wire cable noose used to pull cut logs) from the bottom of the pool, run the length of the arena to secure it around a pole, and tag his teammate who underhand-chopped a log. After breaking through the log, the chopper ran to his two-man saw teammates, who bucked their log and continued on to tag a teammate who sliced a thin round from a log with a Stihl 461. The clock stopped with a splash when he dropped his chainsaw and dove into the pond.