chainsaw Saturday

On Saturday morning, I was working on my garden some more. Adam came out and offered to teach me how to use the chain saw (again). I used it in Wanship to cut some fire wood for our wood stove but I forgot how to use it since I haven't used it since. We had a few trees in the back yard that had fallen and needed taken care of. There were also some trees in our island by the driveway that needed to go. That's where we started. Adam felled the largest tree in the island to show me the technique. Then gave me some pointers and put me to work loping off branches of his fallen tree to get some practive. Then, I felled a few of my own and chopped them up as well. After about 45 minutes, Adam asked if I needed a break. I said yes and went and got some water. I was expecting to use it again but he didn't give it back.

He was cutting down a small tree here.


That's my handiwork.

Adam started in the backyard with a pine tree. When we moved here, it was a scrawny stick that was leaning over badly. It was taller than me by a couple feet but only a few inches around. Adam talked about cutting it out then but it never happened. So he was surprised to see how big it had gotten. When he cut it down, it actually fell on the dog fence and into the dog pen. You can see the mess inside the fenced in area.

Here's the trunk of that same tree behind the dog pen. It really had gotten quite big.

For the grand finale, Adam chopped down a huge tulip poplar. It was also leaning pretty badly and the roots were cracked. If you enlarge the pic, you can see Adam behind the tree cutting out a notch.

Here's what it looked like after it fell.

We had to clean up all evidence of that one since it landed partially on our neighbor's dog cemetary. It didn't cause any damage though, luckily. Only some of the smaller limbs made it out that far. We still have a lot of clean up to do in the back yard but that was definitely a good start.

After Adam finished, we went in to have lunch and I was falling asleep so took a 20 minute nap. I woke up and my left arm hurt pretty badly. It hurt for a few days. I am glad Adam took the chain saw when he did because it would have hurt even worse!