I Probably Shouldn't Have Done That
The chestnut tree is finally out of the front field. I trimmed - or more properly: bucked, though this was a tiny little tree, the branches down so I have just a trunk, for what use I know not, as yet, and I tossed all the branches onto the brush pile. That was all very well and good. The problem was starting the chain saw. That hurt. I mean, that really hurt.
S* cut the chestnut tree down with a skilsaw back in September. It all started when we had to get a piano out of the front room of the house. Or, really, it all started when we had to back a truck up to the front porch, to recieve said piano. We needed maybe another four inches of clearance. The tree had to go.
The tree had to go, in fact, many years ago, when I first arrived here. I just didn't have the heart to cut a tree down. So I left it. Along with the ten other volunteer chestnut trees that had grown up in the front yard during the time that the farm was abandoned. They'd gotten quite stately by the time I arrived - ten feet tall, most of them, and certain to scatter toe stabbing chestnut husks hither and yon. They've grown even more, during the years that I've been here, shading out any possibility of grass in front of the house and rubbing their upper branches against the roof. But I haven't cut them. They're trees, after all.
There's a clothes line between two of them, a bird feeder on another, and little paths all around the rest, where you have to walk if you want to get anywhere from the front door. The "yard" was a sight when I first got here: Smack dap in the middle of the fields they put this house, and then put a chain link fence around it. (They, of course, painted the chain link fence white.) A chustnut had been planted in one corner, and then it proceeded to have babies. They put a little community of daylilies in another corner, two apple trees in the front yard and another in the back, and a plum tree in a back corner. A chinese snowball was planted next to the chestnut (the original,) and on both sides of the gates: roses. Someone clearly had a plan, or, as I more often envision it, someone ordered something like a "perpetual bloom combo" out of a catalog. The daylilies come on first, followed by the Chinese snowball and then the roses. There's color in the front yard right up 'til late summer. Then the chestnuts start to fall and you can't go out there anymore.
But, like I say, someone had a plan.
One of the baby chestnuts died a few years ago, and another came down in a storm. This was the third to go. We dragged it out to the front field and left it there. We had a piano to move. The fuel line on my chainsaw was broken at the time, so I ignored the tree. I got myself a new fuel line about a month later, but for some reason never got around to cutting up the tree. That was this afternoon. It is neatly and tidyly disposed of, thank you, and the front field is ready for a plow. It's just that my shoulder is swollen, and I'm thinking that using the chainsaw wasn't such a good idea. It wasn't the actual using of it that hurt, it was the starting. I felt that, alright, right down in the bone.
Next installmant: A description of various outbuildings, and their gradual dismemberment and/or refurbishment.
S* cut the chestnut tree down with a skilsaw back in September. It all started when we had to get a piano out of the front room of the house. Or, really, it all started when we had to back a truck up to the front porch, to recieve said piano. We needed maybe another four inches of clearance. The tree had to go.
The tree had to go, in fact, many years ago, when I first arrived here. I just didn't have the heart to cut a tree down. So I left it. Along with the ten other volunteer chestnut trees that had grown up in the front yard during the time that the farm was abandoned. They'd gotten quite stately by the time I arrived - ten feet tall, most of them, and certain to scatter toe stabbing chestnut husks hither and yon. They've grown even more, during the years that I've been here, shading out any possibility of grass in front of the house and rubbing their upper branches against the roof. But I haven't cut them. They're trees, after all.
There's a clothes line between two of them, a bird feeder on another, and little paths all around the rest, where you have to walk if you want to get anywhere from the front door. The "yard" was a sight when I first got here: Smack dap in the middle of the fields they put this house, and then put a chain link fence around it. (They, of course, painted the chain link fence white.) A chustnut had been planted in one corner, and then it proceeded to have babies. They put a little community of daylilies in another corner, two apple trees in the front yard and another in the back, and a plum tree in a back corner. A chinese snowball was planted next to the chestnut (the original,) and on both sides of the gates: roses. Someone clearly had a plan, or, as I more often envision it, someone ordered something like a "perpetual bloom combo" out of a catalog. The daylilies come on first, followed by the Chinese snowball and then the roses. There's color in the front yard right up 'til late summer. Then the chestnuts start to fall and you can't go out there anymore.
But, like I say, someone had a plan.
One of the baby chestnuts died a few years ago, and another came down in a storm. This was the third to go. We dragged it out to the front field and left it there. We had a piano to move. The fuel line on my chainsaw was broken at the time, so I ignored the tree. I got myself a new fuel line about a month later, but for some reason never got around to cutting up the tree. That was this afternoon. It is neatly and tidyly disposed of, thank you, and the front field is ready for a plow. It's just that my shoulder is swollen, and I'm thinking that using the chainsaw wasn't such a good idea. It wasn't the actual using of it that hurt, it was the starting. I felt that, alright, right down in the bone.
Next installmant: A description of various outbuildings, and their gradual dismemberment and/or refurbishment.
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