Pretty Quick Day

[Tom]

I got on site at 9am, sawed 1060 feet with two iced tea breaks, was home at 2:30pm with a $230 check and two more jobs. I think I'll play tomorrow.

[CHARLIE]

OK all you other sawyers out there....there's proof positive that you don't want to work as an Offbearer for Tom. Sheesh! At least I got a can of Brand X peas for lunch. Whoever the poor soul offbearing on this job got was 2 ice tea breaks. Now.....Tom allows 15 minutes for lunch, so I'm figuring a tea breaks gotta be about 5 minutes.  

[Gordon]

But Charlie you have to admit that he brought home the bacon.

But now you have me wondering---who supplied the iced tea?

Now for a serious question Tom, What did you saw today? Sounds like you made kickin time.

Gordon

[Tom]

Sawed snakey, smallish, swell butted, White Cypress into 1x6's for a board fence.

The logs had been down awhile, (Jeff saw them) and the sapwood had dried which made it hard to saw. The heart was still pristine and sawed like room temperature butter.

Charlie, I would have loved to have had a dinner break, but the log owner had a birthday party to go to at 3pm and was paying the off-loader actual money.  He sent his wife after a bag of krystal hamburgers for him and the off-loader but wouldn't let the guy eat them because we were so close to being done. I was doing my best to get done so that the off-loader could get something to eat.

The iced tea breaks were because I shut the machine off and sat down. Contrary to popular belief, I still control the key.

[woodmills1]

dang, now besides peas I am supposed to shut the machine off and give them breaks.  Ice tea??  who supplies that

[Tom]

I have some tea bags in the truck. You can make sun tea by putting some bags in a milk jug full of water and setting it on the back of the truck, in the sun.  It will be ready about noon.

Most of the time, down here, if working around a homestead, iced tea (sweetened iced tea, aka sweet tea) is as common place as an outdoor water faucet.  It is usually very sweet, almost syrupy and I think has, as its history, something we call "sweet'n water".

The heat of the south saps the strength and "gumption" out of you real quick.  Back in the 1800's and turn of the century, my grandmom said that the men were sent to the fields with bottles of cane syrup for energy.  Three or four tablespoons (or more) of cane syrup stirred in a glass of water,  reconstitutes the juice into a facsimile of "Cane Juice" which was drunk for energy and refreshment.  

We were raised sipping on "sweet'n water" and as I grew older and worked in the woods found that it is still a staple.  I keep cane syrup on my truck for this purpose.

It would be an uncommon occurance to be around a "real" southern home in the heat of a work day, and not be offered a glass of tea.  Expect it to be sweet.

Southern Sweet Tea is a lot like the old Sweet'n Water and is the "Civilized" drink of the South.  Of course you can't beat a dipper of cool clear water.  

[Ron Wenrich]

Back when Castro opened his jail cells and left them come to the States, they put a lot of them back at Indiantown Gap, which is a National Guard base and about 5 miles from me.  It had a lot of WWII barracks and was used for Vietnamese and Cambodians after the Vietnam war.

Cubans tended to cause a lot of problems.  They had a few sugar riots there.  It seems that their favorite staple was a cup of cane sugar mixed with milk.  The government thought that was wasteful and took it away.

For me, iced tea never has done much.  It made me more thirsty.  But, I do take on quite a bit of water in a day's time.