Yard work

I’ve been writing late about some things recently. It’s probably due to being busier and wanting to spend some of my free time relaxing. Anyway a friend of mine came up this weekend. I think Ty needed to get away and do something else. I went to the botanical gardens last week and bought a couple of things. I had planted everything except the maple tree and the camellia. He offered to help with that. Ty talked about his recent purchase of an electric chain saw at Sears, and offered to bring it up. I took him up on it, but I’ll ramble on about that following the link.

So Saturday we set out and first on the list was for me to finish some lawn mowing and using the string trimmer. I set Ty on cutting down and cutting up three sweetgum trees in my back yard. The things look nice, but they drop those dadblamed seed pod things that roll under your foot and trip you. He started them while I finished up the yard. When I finished the yard I noticed he was nursing the saw a bit. Upon inquiry he said it looked like it broke. From the symptoms we surmised that one of the gears stripped. But as it so happened he bought the saw at Sears and got the 2 year replacement warranty on it. We took it in later and Sears promptly replaced it on the spot. Man I like Sears sometimes.

While we were still talking about the saw, before we took it in, we looked at a fourth sweetgum I was thinking of removing. We had been using my double bladed ax for limbing the carcasses of the other three trees. I took a swing at the tree and was surprised to see the ax sink in a good inch. I like to keep my ax sharp. I took another swing to equal success. I looked at Ty and we basically said why not? I kept swinging until I was about 1/3 through. You know I’m not used to that. I got fairly winded. Ty stepped up with those huge arms of his and chopped through the other 2/3s from the other side. We got the thing down. I limbed it up and then we went to Sears. It gave us incentive to get the saw replaced for use the next day.

Sunday we got up and cut up the rest of the last tree. Then we cut down a diseased and dying tree in the front yard. We planted the maple out front, and then we went to plant the camellia. Well there were roots, and we cut some of them. Ty was using the mattock and got it hung on a root without knowing it. He sheared the back completely off the tool. I was actually impressed, though I’m missing a mattock now. Anyway I figured it was payback for my trees breaking his saw. Anyway it was a cheaper cast head, and now I’m looking for a forged one. If that one breaks then something is wrong.

So At least I got my plants planted and 4 trees cut down. Now I only have to get the other 2 sweetgums cut down. Yeah I had 6 in the back yard. At least it will give me room for a magnolia, a beech, and maybe some fruit trees.