The smell of wood cutting hangs heavy in the air around our house. Every time I go out to the backyard to feed the chickens or work in the garden I smell Papaw Wade. Sounds sort of strange right? Actually, since he’s been gone for well over 20 years it even seems strange to type it.
Papaw Wade was a logger. Oh he had other pursuits too, he was a farmer for many years and he was a Baptist preacher. But Papaw was primarily a logger.
I’m not sure there’s anything that smells as good as just cut timber. The sweet smell of sawdust mixes in with the earthy smell of freshly upturned dirt and disturbed decaying leaves. And if you happen to be cutting pine trees, then you’ve got the smell of Christmas thrown on top of all that other goodness.
Even before Papaw passed away the smell of wood cutting made me think of him. In high school I worked at McDonalds. Whenever a logger came through the drive-through I’d slide back the glass window and inhale the scent of home and comfort.
The strong feelings I have connected to the smell of timber cutting and Papaw Wade are reinforced by the fact that when I was a little girl Pap was a logger too.
I remember climbing in his and Papaw’s lap when they come in from work. I’d play with the sawdust where it had gathered in little piles in the folds of their clothing.
—October 13, 2015
We were in the midst of having some huge pine trees above the house cut when I wrote the post about the wonderful smell of sawdust back in 2015. It took several weeks and a few hairy moments, but The Deer Hunter and his friend got all the trees down without harming our house or themselves. If you’d like to see the trees you can visit this post and this post.
Last night’s video: Accent Test, Common Stereotype, & How to Say Appalachia.
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Tipper you are so right. My husband was a logger and now runs a tree service. I think the smell gets in their pores. Even after a shower he still smells of pine and oak. It’s a very comforting aroma to me.
My paternal grandad smoked a pipe & even after he quit, some of his belongings still smelled like it. I loved that smell & now it isn’t often that you come across it. Only the oldest of men still smoke a pipe. My other grandpa smelled like cigars – that wasn’t as comforting ; ) My dad always smelled like motor oil, farm work, sometimes fresh cut wood, and Carhartt (I know that sounds weird, but Carhartt coats/bibs have a certain smell to me)…Its a very particular mix & I married a man that smells like all of these things too. When he comes in from working outside, its as if my dad has walked into the house. But it makes sense because they do all the same things as work. My adopted grandpa always smells like lumber & Lava soap – he is a logger. All the men in my life are/were extremely hardworking. I’ll take the oil, lumber, grease, manure, sweat, & pipes smells over others any day of the week! They all cleaned up good when they needed; Church, shopping, dinner and then they smelled like Old Spice (dad & 2 grandpas) or Irish Spring Soap & chewing gum (Hubby).
Such a sweet memory. We grew up with a wood stove and the smell of cut wood and wood smoke brings back comfort and the warmth of family.
Great story. Hard to see big trees come down but safety is most important. Also enjoying everyone’s comments.
Question-what is the machine in the picture?
Lenora-thanks for reading! It’s the back of a chainsaw 🙂
That is a humongous tree in that photo. I hope it is still sound and still standing if it isn’t a threat to home or hearth. Big trees are a reminder of God’s Glory for me.
I recognized Matt in the photo from the sheath knife on his right hip.
Loved this post today! My husband’s parents lived near a sawmill, and I always remembered the smells. No one in my family was a logger but we did know someone who was, and that is a very dangerous job. We also had a friend who was a truck driver and he said you have to be so careful when you are hauling them because if you turn too quickly onto a road, they can shift and it’s dangerous. Getting back to the smells of wood, I love the smell of a Christmas tree lot. Pine and cedar smell so good. Have a blessed day everyone!!
I remember trucks that hauled timber and coal. The coal didn’t smell so good, but the rough cut timber left a lingering and pleasant aroma. My favorite and lingering memory of wood was the cedar planks that my Uncle Bill cut for the inside of their home in Tennessee, I also liked smell of locust posts that he cut and split to “shock” his newly cut tobacco.
My Mother’s father died when she was a teenager but he owned a sawmill and his father before him did so too. Her oldest brothers were loggers too and I know that was dangerous work. I remember the smell of fresh cut pine and fir and I still love to smell it today.
Tipper, in your accent video, I noticed I pronounce all the words like you do. What stopped me in my tracks so to speak was your pronunciation of “the a ter,” just like I say it. I have a dear Christian friend that is a college professor of accounting. She stopped me one day and said I was pronouncing that word in three syllables. Well, that’s the way I say it and I’m sticking to it:) At first I took it as a judgement call, but maybe she had never heard it pronounced that way.
When our sons were about 7 and 10, we would go to the grocery store and I would say please get me one of those buggies and our sons would say Mom – you mean a shopping cart. I’m sure my sons pictured a buggy as a baby buggy. It always makes me feel a kinship to a person that pronounces a word like I do or my grandparents, etc., used in my growing up years.
When I was 9 or 10 years old, I was allowed to accompany and help a professional forester buying logs for the U. S. Government during WWII. We went from one logging camp to another across the mountains in Oconee and maybe Pickens counties. My job was to strike the end of each log with the back of a hatchet that imprinted “U S” into the wood. Then I would write the sequential number on each one, using a big blue grease pencil. The forester, a man named Frank Palmer, recorded the number of logs marked at each site. It was a long, tiring day for this tag-along boy. The scents, sights and sounds in those loading areas are fresh in my mind to this day. I saw teams of oxen dragging huge logs out of deep hollows. I was standing on the back end of one log when a whip cracked and the team gave a jerk, sending me sprawling in the mud.
Tipper, I can’t seem to identify the two men in the photograph at the top. I don’t think it’s Pap or the Deer Hunter. That’s some hard work. There is nothing like the smell of fresh cut wood.
Miss Cindy-it is The Deer Hunter and his friend Scott
I don’t think there is anything better than the smell of fresh cut pine. My father was a logger, that had grown up in the Ozarks and worked timber all his life. I learned to ride on his logging horse. I spent my youth in logging camps in NW Colorado. Dad and my brothers would work timber all day
and then we would all cut and load firewood during the evenings to sell for extra money. We also had Christmas Tree lots, so much fun to collect those trees to sell. Very very special memories. Time in timber always refreshes the soul.
Wonderful memory, Tipper when can we get your cook book?
Joe-Thanks you! We hope the cookbook will be available in 2023 🙂
There are so many smells that trigger memories. Freshly baked bread, cookies, and cakes. Beautiful sweet smelling flowers. Wood burning fireplace and of course the sweet smell of babies! Take care and God bless ❣️
I love the smell of fresh cut wood, and I love the smell of lumber in a Lowe’s or Home Depot.
I have cut a lot of wood in the earlier years of my life mostly firewood but I also cut pine and some sweet gum for pulpwood. I didn’t think about Christmas when cutting pine pulpwood but thinking back it did have a Christmas smell around the pulpwood. Hand loading 3 cords of 5ft sticks of pine wood on a pulpwood truck is some of the hardest work you can do. Now a days they use equipment that has taken most of the physical labor out of it. Between the smell of the chainsaw exhaust, and the pine sap or smell of red oak and plain ole sweat, not perspiration, loggers do smell, when doing this work, I fell in love with a bow chainsaw, they were back savers and would allow you cut all the way through a tree laying on the ground. A bow chainsaw has a big circular bar on it and you only use the circular end for cutting. If it is not used correctly, it will jump up in your face. A lot of times it was considered unsafe, but to a pulpwood man the advantages out weighed the disadvantage. You can make a screw driver or most other tools unsafe if not used for their intend purpose. These saws are no longer made. I did use a straight blade saw to work up the tree tops when cutting firewood.
I don’t remember the guilty member that mentioned a few days ago about putting peanuts in their cokes, but it reminded me I had not done that in a long time. I bought me a CAN of party peanuts and a 2 liter Pepsi and have been enjoying myself this week! No I didn’t eat it all at one time.
Randy, I may be one of the guilty ones LOL, but I think someone else also mentioned it. I remember when we would get the packs of Tom’s peanuts in the little bags and pour them in a bottle of Coke or Pepsi. I had a friend from Florida that I told her about doing this and she thought I was crazy, until she tried it and loved it. It was either Tom’s or Lance brand. If no one has tried it, they are missing a treat for sure. Enjoy!!
Gloria, I always preferred the Lance brand over the Tom’s brand. Coke or Pepsi with peanuts poured in them is a true southern delicacy! The small packs were not available so I just bought a whole can. This is just me but I wouldn’t turn around for the taste difference between Coke Cola, Pepsi, or RC. RC’s are sorta hard to find sometimes. I remember when we referred to all brands as Coke. We might ask someone with you if they wanted to stop and get a Coke or just call it drink or drank.
Sorry, this is late but Randy, it was the Lance peanuts in the little bags and Lance is the better brand. I don’t see many RC’s anymore and you are right. I can’t tell you the many times I have heard,” I’m going to the store to get a drank.”
Brings back memories. I worked with my Dad in the log woods back in the 60″s then worked at two different sawmills in the 70’s. When reminded, I can so well remember the pungent, sweet smell of pine sap and the sour-sharp smell of oak which yet smelled clean. Those chainsaws throw shavings all over the body running them and – as you mention – they smell just like the timber. I think maybe between sight, sound and smell that smell evokes memories more quickly and more deeply that the other two, just as you mentioned about wood smoke yesterday.
And about the “first fire” post, I thought late in the day about another first fire memory. Anybody here remember stove polish? We had a coal burning stove in the living room and part of the preparation for heating season wss to polish the stove. If memory serves, the stove polish came in a red metal tin, kinda like shoe polish but bigger. It was a silvery-gray paste about the color of new cast iron. It was rubbed on with a rag. When the stove was first fired thereafter the polish had a distinct smell for a bit. That was a different kind of first fire smell. In the coal fields we also got, instead of the gentle smell of wood smoke, the piercing smell of sulfur (also known as brimstone)!
Ron, I remember stove polish but don’t remember any of my family using it. I remember daddy and other older men talk about their daddy’s intentionally setting the chimneys on fire. Daddy said they would either use corn shucks or straw and stick it up in the chimney and set it on fire to burn out and clean the chimney. He said grandaddy would wait until a rainy day to do this to keep from setting the shingle roofs on fire. Do any of you remember those birds called chimney sweeps getting in the uncovered chimneys during the summertime?
My daddy remembered his daddy burning straw to clean the chimney. So my daddy decided to do the same back in the 80s. Mama wasn’t keen on him doing this. Let’s just say the fire department was very nice when they came. No damage but those were big flames coming out of the top of the chimney.
Ron, when we wanted to put a quick shine on a stove we’d use ham skins. Gave the house a good smell for a while
it’s funny how smells remind you of people. my mother used a face powder that must be still sold today. everything I walk past someone wearing it I see and feel her
How is it that those days have so turned to memories, time passes so swiftly and yet goes on tiptoe so the passing of it is barely noticed. Keep sharing, you’re therapeutic.
Tipper, I can’t say I ever smelled a logger, but I smelled tons of wood freshly cut and split by my own hands. During the cutting, the wood smell is overwhelmed by the smell of two cycle gas engine exhaust, and I can’t say there’s anything particularly appealing about that. Of course nowadays, for light duty work, there’s electric saws. Of course the sawdust itself can leave a wonderful fragrance.
Fresh split wood is another matter altogether. My favorite is red oak – either southern or northern; it has a wonderful aroma, and splits beautifully to boot. Don’t care for the smell of sweet gum at all (and its grain is seldom straight).
I know those smells very well and I love them too.
Tipper, I actually felt like a big loner until I read your blog today! I too am obsessed with the smell of wood and my favorite candle is balsam fir- even in the heat of summer! I love to smell Christmas trees and where they sell them with all that delicious pine scent filling the air! Being in WV, I’ve smelled wood all my life and even as we speak, I’m not seriously considering a wide cut of wood coffee table – I’m sure you’ve seen them. When I see trees cut headed for lumber mills, I get a little upset and mad inside thinking about the trees. I’ve got a dogwood scratching at the house and I’m torn thinking about trimming or hacking her down. I’ve got trees- oh Lord do I- mainly scrub hickory nuts all around me and white oak standing (over the kitchen) on a terrace. I only get nervous when the wind whips up above 60 mph… then I pray… why cant I live down south or out west? I’d have to say I’m a literal tree hugger in love with trees! I’m loving all these colors and wonderful smells and the crunching under foot… we went up to Cheat Mountain in a Pocahontas County and never saw a deer. There was plenty of evidence of black bear and puma claw marks way up high on the tree trunks…Murr said he did see a bear… wonderful fishing and camping there as well as plenty of trees!!! Lol
Freshly plowed fields in the spring, newly cut hay, and just cut grass. My three favorite smells!
P.S. Thank you for your fall planing encouragement. My garden is teaching me what works and what doesn’t, so I am curious to see what happens with the rutabagas!
Oh yes Miss Tipper, I know of this smell of fresh cut timber very well as I worked at a local sawmill here in our neck of the woods right out of high school for about 3 1/2 years and got to enjoy that smell every morning. Also the sounds of those chainsaws and heavy equipment running way off in the distance down through the river swamp and all around our logging community. Long before then though when I was growing up my Grandaddy Lawrence worked at this same sawmill as the head mechanic and I can remember us kids (my cousins) and I running out to meet him every evening when he would come in from a long hard day of working at the sawmill to see if he had any left over lunch/goodies in his lunchbox that my Granny packed full for him every morning. Thanks for this post that just took me down memory lane.
Wow such memories. I always have a candle lit with wonderful smells that remind me of something and just yesterday I began looking for the ones that I have that smell like winter and/or holiday season. The first ones I came across was Fir tree or Pine. The Fir always reminds me of Holiday odors…Thanksgiving and Christmas. Your memory of McDonalds made me think of, during my early years, going in the woods behind our home to cut down a Christmas tree. Fresh tree, or burning leaves smell is soooo soothing. Thanks again for your memories that remind me of mine. God Bless.
My aunt (my Mom’s sister) and uncle moved to Washington state when I was 5. I remember the log trucks from when my family would drive to San Diego to go visit them all the time. I was really happy to see the log trucks driving down the roads by where I live when I moved here to North Carolina six years ago! The smell of freshly cut wood stirs up feelings of wanting to do crafting, cooking, baking, and cleaning my house in me. Aren’t those strange things to feel like doing when I smell sawdust? I think it’s the thought of men hundreds of years ago building a log cabin for their families in the wilderness. The wives cooked hearty meals to feed the men for their lunch and dinners. Their homes probably smelled like freshly cut wood for a long time, especially when they swept the floors and stirred up that scent. I am a nurturer, it is the way God made me. I want to take care of everyone in the world – making sure they are well fed, and comfortable. So I think the smell of sawdust brings that natural instinct God made me with come out. Maybe I had an ancestor whose husband built their home, and it just runs in my blood to associate the smell of sawdust with providing for others. Does that make sense? With your family history of loggers, I bet nurturing a logger is in your blood, Tipper. You love that smell of hard work.
Donna. : )
I loved this! Thank you for starting my morning coffee off with such a lovely memory!