Larry Woods is a remarkable man!  Talented and gifted in so many ways!  How lucky are we that he is our neighbor at Camp Howard?  Larry is a retired forester who worked very hard in life.  Along the way he learned a lot about the forest industry and also about mechanics, welding, building with metal, painting metal, etc.  He rebuilt our camp luggage trailer a couple years ago and it was really a work to behold including some pin striping!  He rebuilt the hitch to make it easier for a couple of gals to operate (Karen and I).

Currently he has been working on removing the Alder growth that tries to get a stronghold in new plantations of Douglas Fir.  He has really made some great headway on that project.  One of the most interesting things he is doing is building “rock cribs” for us out of metal.  Now you are wondering what a rock crib is!  I will have to do a special posting one of these days on rock cribs from Eastern Oregon.  Maybe some of my friends will send me pictures of rock cribs to use?

Anyway a rock crib is one of those special little devices that has a variety of positive attributes.  It provides a space to place rocks that farmers don’t want in the field because rocks break up the equipment.  So they build cribs to put the rocks in and keep them out of the way.  The cribs are built along fence lines because they help stabilize fences.  The weight of the crib would anchor the fence.  In some places in Eastern Oregon, it is hard to dig into the ground to plant a fence post so the rock crib became the anchor for the fence post as well.

What are we going to do with them at Camp Howard?  We are going to mark the boundary lines of the camp with them for starters.  Then we are going to use them to anchor the new fence and gates we will replace along the front edge of the property along Camp Howard Road.  These rock cribs will last a lot longer than the ones my Grandfather built out of wood.

I would like to hear some comments on your own experience with Rock Cribs…

Larry Wood in his shop where he has built a prototype rock crib for Camp Howard.