away

We had a very productive weekend. On Saturday morning, we took Homer for a walk - he's recovering nicely from his surgery, but needs to take it easy for a week or so - and then participated in a park cleanup in my neighborhood. Then came the real chore for this weekend.

The tree growing in front of my house has died since last summer - I suspect some parasite since there are tiny holes in some of the branches - and I've been meaning to take it down. Since our neighborhood's brush pickup is this week, Saturday was the day.

We went and rented a chainsaw - a nice, 16", gas powered Stihl saw from a rental place on Lamar. The rental place was cool, they have all sorts of construction equipment (they even have used bobcat for sale). However, the guy prepping our saw made us shudder a bit. The saw came with a gasoline canister (gas/oil mix, since it's a two-stroke) so the guy first poured the leftover contents from the canister out on the grass(!) and then proceeded to fill the canister from a huge gasoline can while nonchalantly smoking his cigarette. Nothing blew up, but I imagine the EPA and OSHA would not have approved.

So at home we got to power up that sucker and I cut down the lower branches from the tree, tied a rope to the upper branches, back-cut the trunk and, while Jennifer and a neighbor pulled the tree from the house, cut the tree down. We then proceeded to dismember the tree, cutting the thicker branches for the fireplace and the smaller ones for the brush pickup.

Both Jennifer and I used a chainsaw for the very first time in our lives and it was quite a thrill (and we managed not to hurt ourselves). Getting to play with - I mean use - a chainsaw is something that everyone should get to do at least once. If you do, make sure you get the real, gas-powered, air and noise polluting thing and not one of those wimpy electric saws.