My favorite Uncle Owen aka Uncle Ugly (why? I can’t even remember how that name started) has been a silent supporter of my father, myself and the farm his entire life. (Background moment) We can’t talk about family and history without discussing that Uncle Sheridan went to northern Maine and started a construction company. Hue’s sons Herman, Owen and Dale all worked for Uncle Sheridan. Herman and Owen moved to Maine. Dale commuted. Yes commuted. He left Monday morning and came home Friday night. 6 hours on way. Yes he could make the drive in his sleep – facts – we once left a parking lot in Rumford with Dave Marcy driving. Dad was sleeping, Dave turned left and Dad asked him why he was going back home and not headed to work. We turned around.
Uncle Sheridan, then later “the boys” owned Sheridan D. Smith Inc., they were dirty ditch diggers as Dad says. They built over 60% of the Golden Road and many many many other miles of off road trucking roads. Uncle Owen in particular built many bridges in the back woods. I started going to Maine with Grammie Orpha, then later with Dad. Dad stayed in Chester at the office. I stayed with Aunt Gloria (she was always so good to me and a really good cook). It’s still not really summer for me until I can hear the echo of the loon on a backwoods lake.
Dad also stayed home during sugaring. Most years several of the men that worked for Sheridan D. came to Vermont to help tap for a couple of weeks. One year Dad thought he was headed to Maine to get started on a project when his father mentioned the wood shed was empty. Yeah, he didn’t leave for another week. (yes Dad I really can hear you telling me it’s August and it’s still not full).
Back to The Main Story
Uncle Ugly, I mean Uncle Owen, if you have a nickname in the family, it came from Owen, (and we all have one, yes mine is Grace, yes that’s a story for another day). If you’ve ever had a prank pulled on you, it somehow involved Owen. I’ve heard the story of a company picnic for Great Northern or maybe it was Caterpillar, someone convinced someone else to try the “moose horn” – after a face full of powder, they didn’t blame the one who gave them the horn, they searched the crowd until they found Owen and rightly blamed him as the prankster.
He has a natural talent for getting anyone wound up, my father tells of coming home from school to his mother smiling and being in a good mood to being kicked out of the house within 10 minutes WITHOUT getting any pie. Apparently Orpha normally couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn, yet she caught Owen while running up the stairs, with a pair of scissors in the a**. Owen still had the last laugh, the underwear she put a hole in were his brothers.
The only time Uncle Ugly made me want to cry was when he looked at “Haywire” aka as my son Ian, and said with pride, “I don’t have to teach that one anything, he comes by it natural”. He does. I’ve cried. And I completely understand my grandmother throwing scissors at her son. There once was a pitchfork, but that’s a story for another day…..
Back to the Main Story Take 2
Uncle Ugly and the logs…… Sometime during Uncle Owen’s time in the FFA in high school he became involved in a forestry program through the state or federal government to reforest farm land. I would love to give him altruistic credit, I’m sure it was much more likely that it was a means of skipping classes. Either way, part of our farm was taken out of agricultural use (fields or pasture) and replanted with red and white pines. This would have been back in the late 1950s early 1960s. There are 2 major sections planted with pines.
Pile of red and white pine logs
Now it’s 2025, I need some lumber to build a shed for the tractors and to finish putting board and batten on the sugarhouse. I would also like to do some finish work inside the sugarhouse. We just had a local logger cut several loads of logs from these plantations. We sold enough logs to cover the cost of the logging and the firewood they pulled out for us. We then had someone come with a portable saw mill and milled a load of red and white pine, and one poplar log. This lumber will be used within less than a mile from where they were harvested. “Haywire and I will use the leftover slabs to start the sugaring fires next spring. Uncle Owen taking care of the land and the family.
portable saw mill and lumber
Trees lining Lucas Brook
Look not through the stained glass views, but watch the sunlight dapple the forest floor
Let soft needles beneath your soles help cleanse your troubled soul
Lean against the swaying pine as the winds carry away your worries
Listen to the swish of the needles as you find your path through the pines
JB 8/25
