Men and Saws

As a small boy, Number One Son had a certain compulsion whenever a saw came into his hands.  The compulsion: ‘let’s use this tool!’  Cutting down your own Christmas tree had much more to do with using the saw than with cutting down a decent tree.  We had to watch him with a saw as he’d also been known to use it on things we didn’t want sawn down, like the banister of our stairs.  This inclination with a saw has come in very, very handy for us here at Glory Farm, as we’ve had plenty of things to saw down.  All this to say, however, that he might have been given a ‘bad rap’…as it turns out, that he is not the only one who needs to be watched with a saw in their hand!

My Loving Spouse and I set out to trim the willow trees in the pasture.  These trees provide shade for the herd and climbing for small visitors, but they are also a huge mess.  The plan was to clean up the dead branches already on the ground, trim a few dead limbs and trim all the suckers sprouting from the base of the trees.

“This won’t take long at all…let me get the chain saw”…and I believed him.  I am sort of afraid of the chain saw.  It is loud, heavy and powerful, so I try not to use it.  It is always good, when working together to have clear communication.   We’re pretty good at this, if I do say so myself.

“Now tell me exactly what you want cut down, so I don’t get into trouble”, were his exact words.

‘I want all the suckers trimmed on all the trees’.  (‘Sucker’ verb to send out suckers or shoots, as a plant.)  

Except this is where I made my mistake, I turned my back on that man with the saw.  (Sucker – noun a person easily deceived).  I turned around to see him cutting down a tree… with a sort of mad gleam in his eye.  Yes, in his defense it was mostly dead, but it was not the plan according to ‘this won’t take long’.  We now have a tree down, no suckers trimmed or branches cleaned up…but My Loving Spouse had another plan…he’d use more ‘power’.  Driving our tractor Blue he drug all the branches, leaves and a fair amount of dirt (although he says it wasn’t dirt it was leaf debris…but it sure looked and acted like dirt) into huge piles.  Great!  Except huge piles cannot be picked up and put on the fire so it was not so great and the small job was getting bigger and bigger with each tool that was used.

I was mad at him every time he used another tool.  He was mad at me for not using any tools, but for just doing the job the old-fashioned way…picking up the branches with my hands and walking them over the field where the slash pile was burning.  In the end the field got cleaned up, we both stopped being mad.  I took a quiet bath……and the dead tree?  Yep, still out in the field!