Pictures do not do justice to the crushing weight of the towering tree squeezing tight my pitiful chain saw – said saw sadly saddled with an operator soon to be exiled in shame to the desert sands. Said chain saw solidly stuck. Forever stuck. A testament to the folly of man’s hubris overwhelmed by Mother Nature’s wrath.

It all started so innocently. Just a few fallen trees to clean up – as practice for, perhaps, chain sawing an out-building. Or at least chain-sawing access to the out-buildings.

Then I remembered that there were a couple of little trees aimed at the house. They weren’t dangerous now, but they were junker trees, Alders, and would have the Alder’s natural life cycle. That is, they’d fold as soon as the next icing.

So, this little one was a sort of prep tree. But I got careless and the saw was stuck. Getting the saw out was actually easy. From the roof I grabbed a little branch and gave it a tug. Down came the tree, the top leaves and little limbs brushing the side of the house.

It was a good exercise. The next, little tree was straight forward. No lean, so easy to drop where I wanted.

The big one – the one that drove the whole operation – was very satisfying. It had a strong lean toward the house, so I used a couple of straps (salvaged from Summer’s soon to be late, departed van) to sort of give the tree the hint to fall sideways, cut a strong tack to windward and watched it fall perfectly along the side of the house, touching nothing but ground.

Now, safely in my armchair with brandy in the snifter, let’s review the antics of the flying chain saw.