Dances with Wood

This weekend our woods were magical. The leaves have been steadily changing and falling and the moss soaking up all the moisture and turning bright green.

We were out cutting more wood for our wood pile. This time, we were in a section of woods that hadn't been cut recently so the trees were a bit bigger.

Now, cutting wood isn't always dangerous, but it certainly can be if a tree twists and falls differently than you intend it to.

So, if you are the wife who doesn't have the chainsaw, it's always wise to keep an eye ball on the process and make sure nothing lands on you to smoosh you. Or, equally as bad, falls on THE MAN and you have to get medical assistance.

Typically you get your trees down, cut up into chunks and then the brush hauler (that is my title thank you very much) is free to move in and get the smaller branches piled up.

So, it was at the tree falling part where I was waiting on the trail watching progress.

One tree was twined in with another and was proving to be quite the pain.

It refused to fall despite pushing on it and calling it a bitch. Not sure how the name calling would have worked, but it seemed to make THE MAN feel better.

He called for the maul and wedges and we tried that method to get the tree to fall.

Now at this point, it's not wise to keep working under this tree so we needed to get it down immediately.

THE MAN tried cutting higher and I watched as the first block of wood fell, but the tree managed to stay upright and still wedged in.

He tried another cut and another, while the tree slowly shrank but did not fall. It almost appeared to be doing a slow dance yet maintaining it's up right status. Each cut just moved it around on the ground where it appeared to still be growing.

We shared several sets of eyeballs during this process and I tried to decide if upping THE MAN'S life insurance was a good idea.

It was right about then I felt a tickle. Not a good tickle. Like a OMG there is a wasp in my jeans kind of tickle.

No amount of reason would allow me to not immediately check out the tickle and avoid getting stung, despite the possibility of getting nailed by the dancing tree. So, dropped my drawers, found the offending leaf, and zipped my jeans. It was then I realized that quite possibly I had stupidly distracted THE MAN.

Thankfully when I looked up, he was still hard at work sawing and finally the damn tree fell.

I told him his new Indian name, Dances with Wood and got a playful shove.

Thankfully the rest of the afternoon was uneventful and we got two loads done. After showers, we knew what movie to watch!

P.S. for the record, I had quite a bit of cover for the drawer dropping...I was in the woods...although possibly a squirrel saw me.