Spring Yardwork

A few weeks ago, a large tree in our backyard broke at the base of its trunk.  The tree fell onto an equally as large and mostly dead tree, leaning dangerously toward our house. If this large tree had fallen on our house, at least half of our house would have been flattened especially if both trees had fallen together.  Since both trees were now leaning precariously toward our house and are located only a few feet from the back of the house, we decided it would be best to call in a tree service to drop these two trees as well as two other dead trees.

Lately, we have been outside cleaning up what remains of this project whenever the weather has been favorable, or perhaps I should say "cooperative".  As usual, the Vermont weather has been alternating, within hours, between sunny days in the 70s and snowy, frigid days in the 20s.

Before we could even start on this project, my chainsaw needed some much needed work.  Other than needing to replace the chain, the saw really needed a complete overhaul.  I managed to get that accomplished in a couple of hours one morning.  The chainsaw then started with no problems whatsoever.

Sheila's dad, Will, provided some much needed help in cutting up the four trees into manageable sections.  Will and I worked one afternoon until both of our chainsaws were too dull to cut anymore.  Of course, the chainsaws lasted much longer than my back did!  I think I needed a break and some stretching every half hour.  It was a rather chilly and damp day so we only worked for a few hours anyway.  The fact that the chains on our chainsaws would cut no more was really just a good excuse to call it a day!

Will had brought some tools and a wheelbarrow with him on that first day of cutting.  He loaned us an axe, a maul and an antique cant hook for rolling these large tree trunks.  That cant hook has been invaluable with these large tree trunks.  We have since bought a heavier axe and a wheelbarrow of our own.  We figured we would need these tools for future yardwork so we added them to our own collection of tools. 

Adam has been helping with most of the splitting.  This was Adam's first time splitting wood so there was a bit of a learning curve for him.  This learning curve involved learning that it is easy to splinter an axe handle if you slam it on the wood you are trying to split.  So, I replaced the handle on Will's axe and picked up a heavier duty axe for ourselves. This heavier axe has two advantages.  First, the extra weight helps in adding some energy to each downward swing of the axe.  Second, the much sturdier fiberglass, rubber-gripped handle can survive some abuse.  Adam is doing well with the splitting now after a few hours of practice.

The next thing to teach Adam is how to sharpen these tools. Unfortunately, I need to find my files before we can tackle any sharpening.  We could use my rotary tool for sharpening but I would prefer a flat, handheld file for a consistently smooth, sharp edge.  Sharpening is our next project.

I've still been using the chainsaw (with a new chain) to cut the trees into one foot sections ready for splitting.  It seems that the least painful thing for me to accomplish is to cut wood using the chainsaw although, the constant bending and vibration requires me to take a lot of breaks and stretching more often than I would like.  I honestly don't know which is worse...   all the bending over or all the vibration. However, it is definitely less painful than swinging that axe!

Sheila has been loading the split wood into a wheelbarrow and carting it over to our bike shed and then stacking the wood.  She is doing a really great job with that and it minimizes my need to bend and lift constantly.  We have decided to use the split wood to screen the backyard from the driveway and front road. The wood has been stacked in an "L" shape adjacent to our bike shed which is doing a good job at not only screening our backyard from the road, but also hiding our garbage cans and protecting them from the wind.

What I had hoped would be a weekend project has become a never-ending month-long project.  However, at this point I should be used to all my projects taking forever to accomplish.  As my health gets worse, these projects take longer and longer to accomplish.  The more energy that is required for a project, the longer it takes.  Energy is something I really must manage carefully and diligently.  So these more physically demanding projects take me much longer to accomplish today.  Yardwork is no exception.

Our next project in the yard involves getting the flowerbeds ready for wildflowers.  All those colorful wildflowers make a tremendous difference in the appearance of our landscaping!  We are still experiencing "killing frosts" most nights here in Waterbury but the very short Vermont growing season will be upon us quickly.  We also need to get our lawnmower ready for cutting.  I don't think we will need that for at least another month, but it is something else that needs to be done.  Beyond that, I will need to focus on getting ready for our time at the lake house this summer and getting some much needed work done around the house.  I still have some windows and doors to install...   siding...   trim... foundation work...  ductwork...  new floors...  etc.


First thing to do is to finish cleaning up the yard of debris and turning these downed trees into firewood.  The neatly stacked firewood looks very nice and it will be great to have some clean firewood to burn this year.  And, it is definitely a relief to have these dead trees downed before they could do devastating damage to our home.