uprooted

I know I’ve mentioned here before that my neighbor built a garage and in the process had to cut several trees. He gave me the trees, and for the first few anyway, they showed up cut to length and even stacked nicely in my back yard, but not split. At some point, it must have occurred to him that just because you are giving your neighbor several cords of firewood, doesn’t mean that you have to cut it to length and stack it for him too. So it started making it’s way into my yard in lengths barely small enough for a good sized man to drag across the property line.


At some other point, some fun-loving, climber kid tried to tackle a huge stack of wood and succeeded. The stack was brought down on the 1-yard line. Needless to say, my back yard is a topsy-turvy mess of downed trees and branches.
On Monday, I looked out and realized that I’m running out of time to get out there and clean it up before school starts. I surveyed the work that needed to be begun, and knew that I could no longer put off buying myself a new chainsaw. My 3 dollar auction chain saw that Dad got running for me will not start because rip-cord clutch is worn. So I headed off to Lowe’s to purchase my first new chainsaw ever. It is sweet. 42cc, 18” bar, and anti-vibration. Even a guitar player can cut firewood all day and still gig the same evening.
The saw was so good and efficient that I cut up most of what needed to be done on a single tank of gas. While I was back there, I noticed that two roots on the Hickory tree behind the deck were broken and rotting. I showed Jack and said, we’ll probably have to have that cut before long. I saw that it leaned slightly to the back corner of the yard, and figured that it would make it until next summer – otherwise the tree was beautiful and healthy.


Last night I drove Molly to Barnes and Noble to Birthday gift shop and then dropped her off at the party just as it started storming. Badly. The electricity was off at her friend’s house, oceans of water were pounding from the sky, and the wind didn’t know from what direction it show blow. Trees were whip-lashing, limbs falling, and water was racing down the street. It wasn’t long before things settled down a bit and I drove home. Apparently, the storm had been here first and the sun was already shining, and steam was rising from the road. The violent storm had claimed my Hickory tree. It was obviously whip-lashed, as it had split straight up the middle about 8 feet and fallen straight toward the back corner of the yard. The good side of the tree remained rooted. The trunk bridged ground to stump directly over my baby Wisteria growing oblivious and unharmed under the trunk.
Now I’ve really got my work cut out for me this week. My new chainsaw should earn its stripes in its first week of service. And me? Well, its hot. ‘twas 97 yesterday and a lot of my shade is lying on the ground. I cut some limbs off tonight after 7:00pm and in 20 minutes my clothes were drenched, my hair was dripping, and I couldn’t see through my safety glasses. What’s a fella to do?

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