The two dead limbs on the ash tree near out deck (and outside my office window) have been bugging me for years. But they’re too high to reach with my pole saw and I didn’t want to pay the tree guys to come in with their high-lift equipment. So I decided to try a gizmo called a rope saw.”
It’s like a chainsaw chain but with cutting teeth top and bottom. I finally got the thing over my limb but quickly got it stuck. It looked so easy in the videos but this might have been a case of operator error. I finally pulled a big rope over the limb, put the pickup in 4WD, and pulled the partially sawed limb down.
But it wasn’t pretty. I’m going to have another go at cleaning up the stub. To be continued.
Author Archives: Steve Mays
Hiking Trail Update: 6.26.23
I attempted a time-lapse video showing a couple of hours of this project but it was just too boring to post. Not boring for me, mind you, but the state of flow this induces for me doesn’t come across in a video.
Default Face
I recently watched an episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee during which Sarah Silverman explains the concept of your “default face.” This is what your face looks like when it is without expression.
Ms. Silverman says you can “change your life” by simply changing your default face. I believe she is correct. I first noticed this about a month ago when I hung a small mirror from the windscreen in the Jeep (to watch the angry motorists forced to go slow behind me). I am also able to see my own face and I immediately saw my default face. Not pretty.
But when I smile… voila! I take five (ten?) years off my face. It will take a while for this to become my default face because it takes a) awareness and b) some extra facial muscles that don’t get used that often.
The Truth About Cruises
Ms. Madigan nicely sums up why you’ll never find me on a cruise ship.
UTV (utility task vehicle)
I moved some brush this morning using my neighbor’s UTV (utility task vehicles), also known as a SxS (side-by-side). He has repeatedly offered the use of this thing but I resisted. I don’t much like borrowing tools and I felt like I needed the exercise I get from dragging brush up and down our hill. But was pretty hot this morning and the hill gets steeper every time I climb it so I borrowed his UTV. I didn’t have all that much brush and I wasn’t moving it that far. I can see why people are fond of these things.
