I spent a few hours with the chainsaw today. A perfect day to be in the woods. As I slowly brought order to chaos I wondered how people got along without chainsaws. And is it one of those rare tools that can’t really be improved on, like the fly swatter. I headed over to Wikipedia for some history:

“The first portable chainsaw was invented in 1925 by what became the German company Festo in 1933. The company now operates as Festool producing portable power tools. Other important contributors to the modern chainsaw are Joseph Buford Cox and Andreas Stihl; the latter patented and developed an electrical chainsaw for use on bucking sites in 1926 and a gasoline-powered chainsaw in 1929, and founded a company to mass-produce them. In 1927, Emil Lerp, the founder of Dolmar, developed the world’s first gasoline-powered chainsaw and mass-produced them.”

While they’ve made lots of improvements to the tool, the basic design seems unchanged for what, 85 years? I daydreamed (not while sawing) of ways to improve this wonderful tool. Quieter? The noise keeps me on my toes, always aware of the potential danger in my hands. Lighter? Maybe, but the weight of the saw seems to make cutting easier. I guess if someone could come up with a tiny (safe) fusion reactor to eliminate running out of gas. But I look forward to the rest breaks those provide.

If the chainsaw never gets better than it is, it will be good enough for me.

Short of hiring someone else to do it, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to tackle a job like this. The trunks have to be cut into logs; the logs have to be moved and stacked; the limbs have to be dragged and piled. Lots of lifting and walking, up and down the hill.

Our house sets in one corner of a 3 acre lot covered by a lot of scraggly pine trees and rocks. But we really like it. Today I broke my “stay on the concrete” rule and took a walk.

I walked farther than the sat view suggests, but you get a sense of the terrain. I could still hear cars off to the south and a train whistle down by the river to the north. But those were distant sounds and it was mostly quiet. I was so still for a bit that a squirrel did cartoon double-take (“WTF! You’re not supposed to be here!)

I took a few pix but they didn’t capture the feeling. I know that hunters get this natural high when they go out to shoot something but it’s a new experience for me. I’ll do this again until it gets too cold, and it might be nice in the spring.

My take-away was how fortunate we are to “have” even a little piece of the planet we can pretend is our own. No ATV assholes or snow mobiles. Just some trees and squirrels and me.

Last December’s ice storm destroyed a lot of tree. Parts of our property have looked like an artillery range for the last six months. Today a crew of hard-working lads are cutting down the fatally wounded. The price tag seemed a little high at first glance, but after seeing the guys 30 feet up with a chain saw roaring in one hand, it seems about right. I’m proud to say that I gave NO thought to attempting this project on my own.