Moving Trees and other Rural Pursuits

While I putter along in my day-to-day relaxed routines, Bill has hit the "energetic" part of his vacation. Having successfully built the Turtle Trap (though yet to successfully capture said turtles), he has now turned his attention to defoliating the encroaching forest, machete and chainsaw in hand.

Yesterday found him out in the woods, attaching eyebolts to 10 foot sections of oak trees, rigging cable and then using Alex's van to "tow" the logs up the steep slopes to "level ground" (this being a rather relative description anywhere on our property), where he can deal with them. One of these oaks was a dead tree that Bill cut to prevent it from coming down on car or roof in a storm. The other is...well, it's my fault.

When I was having trouble with internet satellite reception a few months back, "the boys" from Wild Blue came out and declared that a tree would have to come down or the satellite moved to solve my problem. Rather than take the time to go tromping into the woods and have the guy put his hand on the tree to be removed, I asked him to just point out which tree. Thinking he was pointing at the straggly locust I wanted gone anyway, I told him to go ahead. Twenty minutes later I was still hearing the drone of a chainsaw and went out to discover he was halfway through a 14" diameter monster oak. All I could think was that Bill was going to kill me when he found out that I was responsible for the death of this magnificent tree. Cut halfway through the trunk though, there was nothing to be done but to finish the job. I confessed my laziness and remorse to Bill in an email, and he was very nice about it, considering. I'm still here, chastened, but alive.

Now the chore is to get these fallen giants out of the forest before they begin to rot. Bill's idea is to cut these oaks into 10 foot lengths, take them (somehow) to the sawmill and have replacement bridge timbers made out of them. This is a good idea. So would cutting them up into planks and replacing all the rotten decking around the house, but who has that kind of energy? Not me. So I'll just shut up on this project.

To get the Pam-Killed-Me oak out, some clearing will be necessary to build a path to drag it down to the backyard. So Bill was out there hacking away with abandon and a 3 ft. machete he bought at the discount tool store for $2.99. No, it's not a quality tool--but it is, as Crocodile Dundee would say, a BIG knife.

There is something elementally primal about men chopping down the forest, I think. My happy guy came home sneezing at sunset (it is Spring, after all, and the pollen abounds), and hungry for his dinner. My hero.