"We mill lumber for telephone poles and construction companies," the day-shift foreman told me. "It's my job to ride herd on the logs, before the big saws start turning them into two-by-fours."

A moment later, he was leapfrogging toward the middle of his immense log pile. Dwarfed by the soon-to-be-milled trees, he looked as if he were playing with a super-sized Lincoln Log set.