A GERIATRIC ADOLESCENT--

does some musing...and some sawing

The leaning tree in both pictures above had been obstructing my view of the pond's dam and I forgot to have son Brian cut it down on his last chain sawing visit.  So, I decided to tackle the job with my hand, bow saws (lower right in the large picture.)

This is not much of a task--when your saw has an engine, that is.

Regardless, at my age advancing toward 72, I managed to get the tree cut with the help of a come-along and a wedge to keep the saw's kerf from pinching--which it wanted to do, a lot.  That't the stump of the tree with the diagonal slope in the center of the large photo.

After I got the tree cut entirely it simply sat there on its stump with its canopy being held up by its neighbors.  With the same come-along I was able to drag the cut tree away toward the right of the large photo when I noticed the canopy was about to fall on a beautiful, elephant ear hosta my late wife had planted and nurtured many years ago.

That led to my concocting the sloped lumber on the left in the main photo, supporting a steel fence post which I hoped would catch the falling canopy and prevent damage to the hosta.

It worked beautifully as you can see in the above photo where the falling tree bowed but did not breech the steel post.

With sweat dripping from my glasses, clean up began.

It was about then I noticed my humming bird feeder, which I completely forgot, had survived the crashing pine canopy.

After I trimmed away some branches and re-filled the hummer feeder both I and a small squadron of hummingbirds were grateful that sometimes a greater power seems to intervene.