Chainsaw

Only someone who hasn’t had to use a chainsaw would suggest that it’s an easy job. Chainsawing is hard, tiring work.

See, most of last weekend was spent outdoors or in the garage. We’re working on a dry bar to install in our dining room, to provide extra storage space and enhance the value of the house. So The Wife motivated me to go and get some of the work done, including trimming the four-by-six studs we are using to support the whole assembly. Well, it turns out that one of the studs we’d bought had become really warped, so I had to get a replacement.

Between that and some of the other supplies I determined we’d need to move the project forward, I was at the Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement Mecca Store for a little bit over an hour. When I got back, I noticed a number of trees in the front yard were now devoid of some of their lower branches. So I unloaded the stuff, and went around back, and sure enough The Wife was taking a saw to every tree in the back yard.

Could she have done this earlier, when we had the guys with the mulcher right there? Of course not. So instead, we got it all picked up and hauled off to the front yard, where it didn’t fit into the trash cans becuase it was about a dumpster’s worth of tree limbs. Therefore, I borrowed our neighbor’s chain saw and set to work cutting the things down to size. Eventually, it all fit (sort of) into four of the trash containers we have for our regular service and I’m hoping that it will be cleared away as green waste. If not, I’ll have to arrange for a special pickup next week (which I’m going to anyway, to get rid of some old furniture we no longer want or have room for).

I took some time out in the middle of my chainsawing to eat lunch (because I was frankly feeling faint between a reduced diet and an unfamiliar amount of manual labor). It was remotely fun, and probably the best electric chainsaw I’ve ever used, but it had run out of gas anyway. As he told me later, my neighbor didn’t hear the chainsaw running for several minutes, and took the time to come out and see if there was any blood on the chain. Seeing none, he went on about his business. That’s a good neighbor.

So between hauling around and chainsawing up a dumpster’s worth of tree limbs, and moving construction studs and cabinets around the house, I spent much of the weekend sweaty and tired. And The Wife was doing her share of the work, too; she cut the limbs down in the first place, weeded our front planter, and painted the components of the bar. We’re both sore in places we didn’t remember having.

The result is a much cleaner-looking yard and a half-assembled bar with built-in cabinets, but still sans the adjustable interior shelf, kick plate, and top. So this week we hope to install the adjustable shelf facings and mount a top-piece for the bar, to be followed by the pièce de résistance — the beaten-copper jacket for the bar-top.