Brian's Chainsaw Adventures

Brian hasn't looked at my blog much, which is good to know if I ever feel like talking smack about him. The one thing he was most curious to know about the blog was: Have I talked about his chainsaw yet. "Well no, I haven't, but if you looked at my blog you would know that."

So here is is: Brian's Epic Adventures with a Big Ass Chainsaw.

When we moved in we knew we were going to have a do a lot of tree maintenance, or rather, Brian was going to have to call people he knew who liked cutting down trees to help because I know nothing about the topic. There are (were) 2 strange rows of trees in the back part of our property, we think they are cottonwoods. One row was alive, and 1 row was completely dead. The dead row was dangerously close to power lines so before this winter we wanted to cut them down. Brian decided it was the first thing he wanted to do, before we had even moved in, because he wanted to buy and "play with" a new chainsaw.

He got one with a 25" bar, I'm pretty sure it was the biggest one in the store. My dad and step mom came up for a weekend to help (shown above), and on another weekend Brian called on our friend Wanda, who used to work as a smoke jumper down in Missoula. She loves using chainsaws as much as Brian does, she even came over once when we weren't here to cut down a tree or two. That's dedication.

One of the trees was very large and Brian had the idea to cut it in half lengthwise so that we could use the two halves as footbridges across our two canals. He called on Wanda again and another friend Landon to take part in a little tree cutting party.

I have to admit, the bridges scare me a little. They are narrow and bow with your weight as you walk across. I am a very clumsy person and I know I'm going to fall in at least once during our time here on the farm. I will also admit, Brian did a great job with them, and it's very special to have bridges that Brian made from trees on the farm. My fear is just a silly personal problem that I hope to get over.

The other big project of the moment was a willow tree that had fallen across the canal and was resting in the crook of another tree. We wanted to take it down before it did any damage to the other tree, and it was also shading a maple that we would like to see thrive. It wasn't as exciting a project as making the bridges, but it provided Brian with an excuse to get out the chainsaw (shown here, with our starved for attention dog Manny).

This project took the better part of a day and involved lots of sawing, hauling logs with the truck, and sawing some more. In fact, a week later, there are still some giant logs on my porch. I wonder how long until that part of the project gets done.

It was absolutely amazing what a transformation the space took and the amount of light it let in. It makes me want to work on trimming all of the other willow trees that are in desperate need of some maintenance.