The woman who owned our home before us got a wild hair up her butt, just before they moved, and planted eight of those nasty Braburn pear trees in our back yard. Not only do those pear trees not bear fruit, every year they blossom with these pretty little white flowers that smell like butt. I cannot express to you how nasty those flowers smell. So when that first spring came around imagine my horror at finding my very own smelly butt garden blooming in the back yard. I hated those trees, thus I was hardly saddened when, one by one, they all died.
Except for the last two. They have held on and fought the good fight. One died last year and seemed to be hanging around waiting for his buddy to die. The second one didn't die so much as it fell over, detaching the root system from the trunk. It was really kind of appalling, the dead one standing stoically over the not dead but uprooted one. At any rate, the fallen tree managed to miss all things important when it fell, but its been on its side for about two weeks. Tuesday I decided it was time to take care of the carcass, however, lacking the proper power tool meant using a handsaw to cut that bugger up. I was tired after about ten minutes. I was hardly able to raise a glass of water to my lips after twenty. I started getting blisters in inconceivable places after thirty minutes and after that its all a blur.
I knew the job would never get done with only that handsaw. I went to Home Depot later that day and looked over a few chainsaws, but chainsaws kinda scare me. So I left Home Depot with the disappointingly teeny pots I had ordered online and could not return.
Once home Meenie and I went to work on the tree until dark. Our home teacher came by that night and offered the use of his electric chainsaw. I'm afraid of chainsaws but I like the idea of an electric saw because it doesn't work when it's unplugged. Don't ask for an explanation, man. Just take it for what it is.
Fast forward to today, when the stars had aligned. I took that chainsaw outside to make quick work of the fallen tree and quick work it was. Thus I decided to move on to the second deader though upstanding tree. My plan was to cut off some of the limbs over hanging important structures I did not want smashed.
That's when I noticed the chain was off the blade. So I took it apart, adjusted the chain and put the blade back on. Upside down, because of course. I opened it up and corrected the blade. I should have taken that for the sign that it was, but I didn't.
Here's the thing, if Mr. D had done the job, there would have been no hang-ups, no pitfalls, and no aggravation, but because I was the one doing the work, it ended up becoming a hundred times more complicated. For example, standing underneath and to the side of the first limb I cut off, the limb should have fallen straight to the ground, but because it was me, the branch got caught up in another branch as it fell and instead of falling down it swung to the side and landed softly though directly on top of my head. That was the second out that I did not take.
I desired that the tree would fall to the north, but even with a cursory cut on the north side it fell to the south where I was standing. It missed me but did hit the fence, the compost bin and my tub garden, all things I was wanting to avoid having the tree land on. Which was why I opted to cut it down as opposed to waiting for it to take the initiative to fall on its own. In the meantime, Eenie is watching the entire process from the trampoline while intermittently laughing her but off and gasping in fear.
The chainsaw kept coming unplugged and at one point I yanked on the cord and the plug came flying at my face and hit me in the lip. Still I pushed ahead, because I don't know when to quit. I decided to remove the limbs all around the trunk, leaving the limbs still holding the trunk up for last. However, because the tree was dead some of the limbs had already broken. Whilst upon the north side of the tree, I pulled one of the limbs off the fence which caused one of the supporting limbs to break and the whole thing came falling back towards me. I was starting to feel that the tree was taking things personally and actively trying to kill me. I managed to get the rest of the limbs severed without incident when wouldn't you know it, the trunk took one last shot and tried to roll over me as I cut it in half. Guys, this tree had nubbins all around it. It should not have been able to "roll." I looked at the scratches, bruises and blisters on my hands and arms and decided I should walk away while I still had all ten of my fingers.
I should just stop doing things.
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