Fell Fail

Inspirational song: The Lumberjack Song (Monty Python)

Two weeks ago, I cut down my first tree. It was a dead aspen, maybe three and a half inches thick. It was super easy, and it fell exactly where I intended to put it. Because of that, I was overconfident today. This time the dead tree was nearly five inches at the point on the trunk where I wanted to cut, and I was way more tired from the hike and early work than I realized. It was all I could do to get the wedge cut on the falling side, and when I cut the back, I started too high. The tree leaned slightly backwards towards me, and it was tough to get the saw very far in. We brought a different friend and her young son up here this week, and my friend tried to help me fell the tree. Even with our combined strength, we couldn't make it drop. We had to call Mr S-P down from the upper level of the cabin to help us, and after the addition of a pulley, 550 cord, wedge, and more sawing, the tree finally came down... to 45 degrees. It didn't fall toward the mine entrance like I intended. It went slightly off from there, and wedged against another couple dead aspens. Seriously. I felt like a failure.

We have been working different jobs than usual, which included a lot of cleanup and having our friends wedge loose rocks in the gap under the foundation, to keep critters out from under the cabin. Then, once the football game kicked off and I turned on the radio, more roof decking work started. (And again I was not the one up on the upper storey handing out boards. I am willing, but my legs are a solid two inches too short to get me up there without the right kind of ladder.) The young man got bored with the tasks he had before, and started digging through the layers of dirt where the 19th century house once sat. He found lots of glass, a cut bone that was possibly a venison steak from a hundred years ago, and a piece of a hinge. He had fun and we enjoyed seeing what he dug up.

I swear the colors up there were different than they were two days ago when I was last there. The aspens beyond the cabin (the live aspens, obviously) seemed a paler yellow than on Thursday. The ones in the meadow seemed vivid orange. By next week, they'll probably be bare. And by then we will need to wait until next year to decide which ones to topple next.