Now that the temperatures have cooled to the point where I’m not completely melting away, I’ve been spending a portion of my weekends working outside in my yard.
The project I completed this weekend was to install some stairs down to our driveway from the back door. We have a small porch and some wooden stairs to the ground but there was still a slope down to the gravel parking area. At one time there were stairs but they were removed to pass inspection to sell the house. We’ve put up with the stoney path for three years, but it tended to get slick in the winter and we’ve both taken spills on it.
My task has been to reinstall steps along the same path. I used landscape pavers left over from past projects and only installed them into the dirt rather than with concrete. We will be remodeling our back stairs in a couple of years and adding a breakfast deck so the stairs will be replaced with permanent then. At this point, I just needed some sturdy temporary steps.
I started at the bottom of the slope, dug out, and leveled a place for each step. I was very much making it up as I went along. I had a sort of plan and just made it work. I think it turned out alright and my wife is very satisfied. She now wants a handrail and I happen to have some old steel pipe that I can repurpose for that project. Details of that will be posted when complete. But next, I need to dig up an old foundation in my yard.
My wife seems to have a thing for chainsaws. She’s never run one, but I used one regularly in my youth. I grew up with a wood stove to heat the house, and a chainsaw was a normal thing for me. But I’ve never seen the need to have one since. Yet, it somehow became a hot topic once we began our search for a house.
The new house has a large yard with lots of trees, which is one reason we purchased it. Our basic requirements were simple: an old house with a big yard and trees. We love trees and shade and squirrels. The house is a hundred years old, and several of the trees may be that old or more.
Shortly after moving in, I noticed that the large locust tree next to the house was beginning to show its age and would need to be removed within the next five years. I was hoping to get a little time before I really needed to address it. However, over the summer, we had a few severe storms that knocked off several large limbs. Luckily there was no damage to the house, though it was a close call. The tree is nearly four feet wide at the base and probably 60 feet tall. For most of a hundred years, it has provided the house with shade, and I hate to see it go. But now, most of the top limbs are missing or damaged and dying.
The Old Locust
Which has brought the topic of a chainsaw back to the fore. Yes, we have trees now, but I had no intention of trimming them myself. Even though we have a fireplace, I had every intention of buying pre-cut wood for it. We live in St Louis, in the city; I saw no need for a chainsaw.
Shortly after moving in, my stepson brought me a $2 chainsaw he’d purchased at a garage sale. He is not mechanically inclined but figured I could get it running. He was right. I am very familiar with chainsaws and their repair. For $10, I was able to get the little junker running, just in time to cut up a couple limbs that fell next to the house. It took all of fifteen minutes to cut and clean up.
$2 Chainsaw
Most of the work done.
Then a couple of weeks ago, we got hit by another doozy of a storm. It threw down one of the trees in the empty yard behind us. The falling tree tore out several of my honeysuckle bushes and damaged some other trees. The most significant limb was probably 20 inches thick. That is a good-sized tree.
I pulled out my repaired and newly sharpened chainsaw and set out to get the job done. However, three cuts into the project, the saw stopped. I never got running again. I wore myself out pull-starting the POS. As you can imagine, I was pissed by this time.
Behind me I could hear my wife quietly saying: “Just go buy a chainsaw… Just go buy a chainsaw…”
As you can probably guess: I bought a Damn Chainsaw!
The New Chainsaw
Next years firewood!
Rather than getting the $140 Craftsman model (I don’t trust Craftsman anymore), I stepped it up to the $300 Husqvarna model. I am partial to the Husqvarna due to past experience and expect this to be my LAST chainsaw. I fought this purchase for long enough that I only wanted to do it once. It’s a nice saw, and I won’t be using it much. Therefore, there is no reason it shouldn’t last the life of its owner.
So, now I have a chainsaw. I expect the neighbors to soon come knocking.
“I hear you’ve got a chainsaw…”
Having a chainsaw is a lot like having a pickup truck; all your friends without one will want to borrow it. (I also don’t have a pickup… yet.)
So Many Words... 