Cleanup, Aisle Four. . .

Actually, cleanup was on the north 'road' in our woods, not in the grocery store as the title might lead you to think.

We've had some windy weather here lately.  Let me amend that.  "Windy" is normal.  We've had some ferociously windy weather here lately.  Like sustained 40-50 mile an hour wind for an entire day, not just the usual 15-20 mile an hour variety we often get.  (When we were building the house at this little place here, DH asked me one windy day "Does the wind ever stop?"  To which I answered, "Yes, for a few days in July when the humidity is 90% and the temperature is near 100 degrees.")

That recent ferociously windy weather knocked some trees down in the woods.  Which, in itself isn't all that big of a deal, it happens.  However, the strong winds we've had lately had snapped some trees off, and they were leaning over the North Road in the woods, hung up in the tops of other trees, yet capable of falling on us should we pass underneath on another windy day.  So, they needed to be taken care of.

This past weekend we had glorious unseasonably warm weather.  And, also unseasonably, the field was dry enough to get the tractor through easily.  So, DH and I loaded up the chainsaw bucket (bar & chain oil, brush, sharpener, extra chains for the saw, nippers, loppers, hatchet, etc), grabbed the chain saw, the axe, the small gas can, and our two long chains, tossed them into the loader bucket of the tractor, and headed for the North Road to take care of those hanging trees.

Making the first cuts.

The trees didn't want to fall, just march the cut ends 5' closer to the road.

Two cuts each, still hung up and standing much closer to the North Road.

DH pondering best place to cut the now vertical stubborn second tree.

He makes a decision,

makes his move, and. . . tiiiiiimmmmmbbbbbeeerrrr!  Success.

Small pile from first (littler) tree.

Larger pile from larger tree.

We stacked the wood along the edge of the North Road for retrieval with the wood hauler trailer at a later date.  No hurry, some of our piles from the cleaning up of downed trees have been back there for years, just aging nicely.  

It was such a nice day, and we were having so much fun with the chainsaw, we decided to move back out of the woods and do a little clean-up along the North Corner of the field, in the fence line.  There are many downed trees there, some hung up, some just laying on the ground.  I got to be the tractor driver and drag several of them out into the field using the chains and the tractor.  We moved them to the field so that we could cut them up without dodging briers and poison ivy vines.

Two trees at once!  How awesome am I! (Shh, I know they're fairly small, but they're trees.)

More of my tree relocation handiwork with the tractor.

 After I had drug about 5 trees out into the field, I got my turn at wielding the chainsaw.  Somebody who shall remain nameless failed to take pictures of me in my lumberjack glory.  Chainsaw wielding: a skill every woman should have, LOL.