Frequently, for both relaxation and edification, I watch videos of chainsaw magicians felling trees. Big trees, troublesome trees, trees leaning the wrong way, trees in the wrong place. As my own tree-felling is part of life on the homestead (I am confident in my ability to fell trees the size of my thigh, not confident in felling trees the size of my waist) I try to watch and learn. Other times I just watch to be captivated by the skills of these men doing this dangerous work with caution and confidence, sort of my version of ASMR.
This video documents the felling of the largest tree I have even seen, executed by a barefoot lumberjack working without eye or face protection for the most part, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth a hundred feet in the air. Since I watched this with the sound off I am not really certain of the context of where or when this occurred.
We are smack-dab in the middle of a fortnight-plus stretch of simply spectacular weather, sunny days in the 60s and nights in the 30s and 40s. we are taking full advantage of the opportunity to get tons of outside work done. Matter of fact I have not been in the shop for nearly three weeks other than to package orders for mailing out.
Thanks to our connection to a stout young local lad, we’ve been able to keep up with the routine yard work much better than years past. One of the things we really appreciate is his mowing of the large hillside area directly above the garden. It keeps the underbrush under control and the expanse of green is a delight.
A picture from eight years ago when I first got the beast.
In order to expand that vista and perhaps make more space available for other things, an orchard is in the discussion, I spent several days with my DR Brush Mower whacking away at the ~4 acres of hillside adjacent to this mowed area. It’s the brown-ish area just beyond the green. I can only work on this about every third day as my shoulders need a lot of recuperation time these days.
For the first time since we bought the property almost 25 years ago that section of hillside is all cleared except for the woodland we are keeping. With this step our young fellow is certain he can keep that area mowed as well. There is definitely a difference between a cautious old man with a $4K lawn tractor and a fearless 16-year-old with a $10K lawn tractor.
In addition I cleared a 1-1/2 acre section between the driveway and the creek, an area we always called “the orchard” since there were a few apple trees there. That field is chock full of large rocks and I walked it ahead of time, marking each big rock with fluorescent spray paint. It was still several hours of arduous work, with many more hours of work yet to come.
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