I Have a Chainsaw and I Am Not Afraid to Use It

Thursday I spent the day in Austin waiting for the eight cats I took into the Humane Society to have their surgery and then to wake up enough for me to take them home. After a restless night listening to kitties crying to be let out of the traps I happily returned them to their homes. The first one out was the one that had protested the most, and what does he do, but go right into the open trap that his sibling was in, then into the next trap, then up into the car. After two nights of crying and then he wants to go back into a trap, what a cat! After the releases all I was left with was the dirty traps and the odor of pent up cats. I do have a “day” job which I worked at the rest of the day.

The weekend was spent cutting up cedar. Cedar, if you live in central Texas you must be familiar with cedar, it is everywhere! I know, I know, it is really a juniper, but around here we call it cedar. It comes in male and female sexes, it is the males that produce the pollen that causes cedar fever. Cedar season usually starts around Christmas and lasts until the end of February. Cedar fever is a miserable allergy. When a cedar tree releases its pollen it can look like it is on fire and is smoking, so much pollen is released at once, it really is a site to see. Now I know it is not practical to cut down all the cedars, but when one is suffering from cedar fever ridding the world of cedar trees doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. If not all the cedar trees, at least all the male cedar trees. When I am out for a drive this time of year, I take pleasure in noticing all the male cedars and picture them cut down or burning up like a torch. Or, cut down and burning! Last year when my suffering was at its worse, red and itchy eyes, itchy ears, runny nose, even the roof of my mouth and deep inside my ears was itching, stuffed up head, feverish, you get the idea. I decided to fight back, I revved up the chain saw and tackled some pretty big cedar trees on my property. It was hand to hand combat or rather hand to branch. I ended up covered with bruises, scrapes and scratches, but they ended up fallen. The satisfaction I got taking down those trees was immense. But, they did fight back, even after they had fallen they used their last bit of life to produce a last burst of pollen that made me miserable. Now cedar grows like bushes but the ones I took down were actually trees, big trees. I should have been scared, but I think, that at the time I was feverish and slightly mad with cedar fever. Now a full year has passed and it is time to clear away the fallen trees. I pull out the chainsaw again and start dissecting. Through the years I have found that I can dispose of all sorts of things if I am able to reduce them to smaller pieces. I have dissected a clothes dryer, a swimming pool and now I am working on those dead and dried cedar trees. It would be easy if I just wanted to cut them up and burn them, but I don't want to waste them, So the needles I am stripping off to add to my garden in the hopes that it will raise the soil ph. The smaller branches I am cutting up for kindling, some of the larger pieces I am cutting up to burn in my wood stove. I am saving the long straight pieces for posts and the really large pieces I hope to make something out of. Maybe some benches or a mantle piece. It is slow going but I am making progress. A chainsaw is a wonderful tool to reduce things into smaller pieces. I am not a big woman, but I do have a chainsaw and I'm not afraid to use it. Something to remember if you ever think of crossing me!