I haven't posted in a while but today it's cold and wet outside so here goes. It started off with putting up an electric fence. I'm so tired of all the work and expense of putting in a garden then have it eaten by the deer in my area. Last year a friend put in my garden while I was in the hospital having open heart surgery. By the time I got out everything had come up and it was picture perfect. He put in several different types of tomatoes and peppers and squash plants. He planted 4 rows of sweet corn, and I never saw anything like it. Every plant was in a perfect line, and I believe every seed he planted came up.
When I first looked at it, I had tears in my eyes. I guess some tears were of joy, and in the back of my mind tears for what I knew would probably happen. Normally I have to replant my corn several time just to get a few ears to eat. In the past they never bothered the tomatoes, peppers and squash plants or the cucumbers because I have them in wire cages. Well along about two days after I got home, I went out to admire my friends work and as I looked out over the corn I could see about a third of it had been eaten. Never mind the cussing spree that was about to happen but after it was over I went to the barn and got another bag of seed and replanted what was gone. The next day when I went out the rest of the corn was gone and not only that the cucumbers that were in those wire cages was gone also. They had nibbled on the pepper plants and stomped all the squash plants into the ground. Back to the barn for more seed. In normal years after I do this a couple times, they seem to move on and then all I have to worry about is the crows and squirrels which mess with the corn until it gets up to about 4 or 5 inches tall. The next day when I went out and looked, they had come back and finished off everything. Tomato plants, pepper plants and the rest of the corn patch right into the ground there was nothing left. I won't go into what happened over the next couple weeks because I plead the 5th.
My plan was last year to put up this electric fencing, but that plan was interrupted by my stay in the hospital which brings me up to this point in time. It all started out with me wanting to cut some medal stakes to use as corner braces. Everything was going well until I got my hands on my new Milwaukee band saw. I was carrying it to the front of the shop and when I went to put it on to the tailgate of my ford F250 somehow my finger got connected with the trigger thingy and you know the rest. My truck is fairly high, and I guess me trying to lift the saw that high things got a little wacky and is why my finger got on to the trigger. Well I was off ballance a little and with my other hand I tried to grab the little handle on the front of the saw but somehow my hand got connected with the saw blade and just about cut the end of my finger off. I guess it could have been worst though. I bandaged it up the best I could before I blead out and with the overwhelming pain I continued on with the project. In the back of my mind, I knew it needed stiches, but when duty calls it's go time. The next morning, I wanted to take that bandage off and do a little better job of cleaning and rebandaging it. It took me 45 minutes to get that bandage off and it was at this time I remembered the thought of going to the house to get some Vaseline to put on the cut to make it easier to remove the bandage. With tears in my eyes, I finally managed to get it off and as soon as I looked at it, I knew I was headed to the ER. 4 hours and 11 stiches later I was back in action.
Thank goodness I had already put in most all of my post and all was left was to put on the insulators and string the wire. I gave up on the corner braces because of time and other reasons and figured I could add them later if needed. It was about this time that I looked at these two trees that were beside the fence and decided they needed to go. One was a big leaning white oak and the other was a pine tree. I headed to the shop to gather up the tools needed like my Kubota, ladder, straps and my trusty ms 400 Stihl chain saw. The more I looked at it the more I knew that oak tree was not going to go the way I wanted it to but what the heck it was worth trying. The worst that could happen besides killing me was it would bend up a few posts and smash my blueberry bushes. Everything was set up and my plan was to tie off the tree with the tractor, put as much pull on it as I could then lock the brake then cut it down and hope for the best. In my younger years I would have climbed the tree and cut it down in pieces but those days a all gone now. I made my first cut and then went back to the tractor to see if then I could get a little more pull on it which it did, so I went about making the final cut. Everything was going well and for a moment I was going to succeed but out of nowhere came a big gust of wind out of a clear calm day and at that instant I knew things were headed in the wrong direction. Even with one wedge in the cut that wind gust was enough to pinch the saw and as I stood there, I tried to get another wedge in there, but it kept popping out then another gust blew through and I noticed the tree start to twist and all hell was just about to break loose. I ran down to the tractor to see if I could maybe still get it to go my way but as soon as I put the least bit of pull on the line the what's the worst that could happen thing came a reality. In all this bad luck that tree fell over and somehow not hit the first post or blueberry bush. But with all that good luck some bad had to happen. I looked over at my saw, and it had been thrown off the stump and landed right under the big azz tree bending a brand new 25" bar along with a new chain. No problem, I'll just go in and get my 261 that I had just put a new chain and 20" bar on to cut all this mess up with. I've been cutting trees for almost 60 years and never claimed to be an expert, but I hardly ever get pinched when cutting limbs but in the tangled mess one limb was twisted one way and the other was twisted the other. Thinking about which one to cut first didn't work because as I cut into it that limb got an iron grip on the bar and twisted it against that other limb I was talking about and it was no getting it out. An ax didn't work because I didn't have room to get a good chop on it and I was out of chain saws, so I went back and got that finger cutting band saw and before I knew it, I had two saws at the mercy of this big oak tree. No problem I'll just go in and get my Milwaukee Sawzall and see if I could go three for three. It was a good thing the bandsaw got hung up because something I hadn't noticed was when that limb pinched the chainsaw it shifted the weight of the tree and now, I would have been on the downhill side if I cut it there. I went to the other side and the Sawzall did the trick and to whole thing rolled over still not hitting anything of value. Well, nothing but the brand-new bar and chain on the 261 and my pride.
I'm so glad no one was around to take video of this mission because this one I want to forget about. I did relearn a few things though. If in doubt about a tree not falling the way you want, get a bigger tractor, and it always pays to have a helper nearby just in case. The only good thing was that I hadn't run all that wire, and it didn't trash any of my T-post. Then there is the thing about yesterday it was 86 degrees with clear bright skies. Today there is 2" of snow on the ground and still falling. The bad thing for you guys that gave me the chance to write this long azz post.
