Oh My Aching Back

Today was a nice day.  A little more blustery than I like, but nonetheless it was a pretty nice day.  Mostly clear skies all day, in the plus six range, and no snow on the ground.  Perfect.  The renovation project was dedicated to plumbing today, which pretty much leaves me out.  I know zero about plumbing.  So I decided that my contribution to Kitpu Estates was to go out and tackle some of the trees we had knocked down when we were in road building mode.  I grabbed my trusty little red chain saw, Mr. Ricci, an axe, my cutter snipper thingie, the hell hound, and toodled out to the back forty. 

Turns out that my trusty little chain saw was not so trusty after all.  It started on the second pull (truly a miracle) but refused to cut.  I was puzzled because the chain was moving around the bar at a good clip, but for some reason it refused to eat the wood.  That's when it occurred to me that the last time I used it the chain had come off and I had spent a good part of an hour trying to figure out how to fix it.  Not ever having seen a chain saw being fixed, or having ever had to fix one before, it took a bit of time.  I quickly realized that I had probably put the chain back on incorrectly, so I took it apart and flipped the bar and then put it back together again.  Then I pulled the cord, oh about a thousand times, and nothing happened.  Iron Bess was a bit pissy.  So I decided that I probably had flooded Mr Ricci and left him alone to pout while I went to see if I could do something which did not require cutting with power tools.  Lo and behold when I returned he finally started after about twenty pulls.  And, the best part, he actually cut the wood.  So I was in business, the wood cutting business.  There was joy in Mudsville. 

I managed to buck up about half the pile before I ran out of gas, so I left Mr. Ricci to cool down before filling him back up and stacked the wood I had cut.  The next time I filled him he started almost immediately so I continued with the pile until I got to the logs which were frozen into the ground.  So I started on pile number two until I ran out of gas.  Things were progressing quite nicely.  That's when the hell hound decided that I was probably the most boring human being on the planet and headed for home.  Somewhere between the back forty and home she found a deer leg and was busy chewing away on it when the hubby found her.  Hubby decided that he needed to check on me because my attack dog had abandoned me.  So I was out in the wilderness all by my onesies and liable to be dragged away by the local bunny population.  Actually the only thing I really have to be worried about in the bush is myself.  Girl + New toy + Enthusiasm = Potential Disaster.  Just before he showed up I ran out of gas so I was stacking wood waiting for my saw to cool. 

As things seemed to be in a state of normalcy he was going to head back to finish the plumbing stuff, "But I think I will cut down these two trees before I leave, okay?"  Tree number one went down without a hitch, tree number two...dam the chain got pulled off when it got caught in the tree.  So hubby fixed it and headed back to the homestead.  When I finished stacking I grabbed Mr Ricci to finish the pile and wouldn't you know it three logs left and the chain really came off.  So much so that it was the end of the business of wood for the day.  Speaking of wood, I must leave this exciting missive as is and go and start a fire, the sun is going down and the passive solar heat is leaving with it. 

This is the pile after my first go round with Mr Ricci.