Killed the Widowmaker

By: jesse

This is probably the closest I've come to having my life flash before my eyes, and while this was happening to me, I remember thinking, this is going to save me soooo much money.

Being a frugal person, alright a cheap person, I hate it when a situation arises when someone tells me you can't do that, then I ask why not? and I get the standard cookie cutter response, "Why would you want to, you can just hire someone to do it". It seems, in our society, that the more comfort and convenience you have, the more you want. If I perscribed to that, then, I wouldn't have anything to write about; though, it would probably keep me out of alot of trouble.

I've had this monsterous tree in my back yard that threatened to crush my house if it ever blew over; it also stood in the very spot of my future shed expansion, so it had to go. After sizing up the tree and deciding, "I can do it myself", all the doom and gloom sayers show up to tell me otherwise. Isn't it something that the people that you're closest to, are the same people that don't want you to fail, but extrodinarily they don't want you to succeed either, they want you to stay a steady coarse (be safe). Nothing wrong with that thinking, it's just I've developed a real animosity for this tree.

I've , slowly, been cutting this tree down over 2yrs., anything that would fall away from the house got sawed off. I finally got to the point where, the whole tree comes down or it stays up, permanently; but seeing how this tree has given me a winter of free heat, and the rest of it would easily get me through another winter; the decision was easy to make. The tree was an easy 75ft. so I was off to the local rental center to get a lift, the best they had was a 40 footer - it would have to do. I got it home and manuevered it beside the tree, and this is where the story started and, at the time, I thought this is where it's going to end. I worked around the tree cutting away anything under 40ft., maybe I was delaying the final cut; because up there it looks a whole lot different than from the ground. I got the top piece, about 35ft. of it, tied off to another tree and started my cut. I notched it without a problem, making sure to put a wedge in the notch, then started my back cut, that's when the trunk split; when the tree started to move I remembered thinking, "Success, I'm going to save soooo much money", then the trunk started moving towards me, I actually tried to hold it back, then sanity returned, I ducked into the basket and the trunk flopped on top then off of the basket. I didn't realise I still had my hand on the chain saw when the tree started falling, and I didn't realise until later that I really messed up. Good thing is the lift survived without a scratch, bad thing is I caved in the backside of my shed, Oh well. I'm guessing the piece that fell was about 300lbs., once I was past the initial drama, I was back to thinking this worked out just fine; then I started feeling the pain in my hand; when the saw was yanked out of my hand it also spread the middle and ring ringer apart, too far apart. Splitting wood that winter was interesting.

It's a year later, I got free heat and my hand, well, I'll just call it a character building incident. My nemisis is defeated, my shed repaired and expanded and any possible damage to my home has been averted. Would I do it again, you betcha!

Article Source: http://www.homesteadarticles.com

Husband and father, one time itinerate merchant and story gatherer, that has settled down to live the simple life and recount some of the experiences that have led me here. Author and Admin. at www.livingonabudget.net You can contact me here.

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