A girl and her toys, Part II

Further to Part I, today I had fun with this.

I don't remember what year it was that winter night when, as a teenager, I went downstairs to dad's workshop and looked at all the tools and stuff neatly hung on individual nails on the wall. I needed a saw. I found the one I wanted. I went back up the stairs and outside to saw the base off of the Christmas tree and then gouge a hole in the middle to fit the spike in the stand. I was determined to do this myself in order to avoid, for the first time ever that I could recall then, having to listen to the cursing that inevitably occurred every year at this "joyous" time. I don't remember anything else, just that I did it, carried the six or seven foot tree in the house and put it in the stand, tightening the screws, with mom holding it steady. Every year since then, that is what I did. When I bought my own place, the first Christmas here, I went with dad to pick out a tree at the local hardware store I think it was. I asked him if I could borrow a saw. I told him which one I was thinking of. The thing is? I still have the saw, hanging on a hook in the laundry room. That was nine years ago.

This came to mind today, because after the big snowfall and the last big windstorm we had, a limb from the big fir tree in my yard snapped off, and was hanging down to the ground from about ten or twelve feet above. It was too cold for a while there to do anything with it, but as it started to warm up, it needed to be taken care of, and I can't afford to pay anyone to do it, but I just sort of kept putting it off. Motivation has been a slight (understatement) problem for me in the past year. Anyways... there have been a couple days where I thought to myself... this is the day I am going to do it, but I just ... didn't. Today, however, was the day. I went out with a measuring tape and measured the damn thing to be approximately 365 inches long. Yes... that would be a tree branch more than 30 feet long. (It's a big tree.) It was pretty mild out, so I had a turtleneck, fleece top, long boots and skull cap toque on. I pulled on the heavy leather work gloves, grabbed the saw and set about hacking off four foot sections of the "branch". There was another perfectly healthy limb lower down that was just too low (I have walked into it a few times in the past few years.) so I set about sawing that one off as well. I snapped off the smaller branches from the bigger sections, and stacked the different bits and pieces into separate piles. Somewhere in the middle of it, a litle warm and glowy, I went inside to grab a drink, and get the cell phone to take a picture.

This is the smaller branch that I cut off near the base of the tree. The saw, which I mistakenly thought all these years was a hacksaw, is a swede saw (I asked dad earlier this evening.). The cutting edge of the blade is about 21 inches long and the length of the saw is almost two feet. One thing I remember from that first time I used it is that it felt "right" in my hand. Since I haven't had a real Christmas tree for the past three years, I don't think I have even used the saw in that time, but today, it still felt the same. I don't know what it is. It may be because the "handle" area seems to fit my hand perfectly, or that you can put pressure on the top of it as you are sawing. Anyways, I ended up out there for about two hours, but it didn't really feel that long of a time.