Lumberjack

Today I cut down half a tree. Actually it was more like 2/3 of a tree. I went to work this morning not planning on spending any part of my day pretending to be Paul Bunyan, but I left work with a valuable lesson about the power of physics and the mystery of gravity.

I must be completely honest in stating that I was not really the primary lumberjack, in fact I was more of an assistant. And since I have already mentioned Paul Bunyan, it would probably be best to align me with Babe the Blue Ox, Paul's faithful friend who pulled trees and hauled supplies.

I, with the eventual help of a beat up pick up truck, was the tree puller. The Blue Ox.

When I arrived on the scene I was handed a rope and told to help pull on the tree while our version of a red plaid clad Paul cut the large pine in a pie shaped cut called a "notch". Once the notch was removed, he began cutting the back of the tree and the cracking sound of anticipation began. We gazed in awe as the tree began its slow fall towards us.

Pull! PUll! PULl! PULL! NO....RUUUNNNNNN!

We ran fast.

Once the noise had stopped, we looked behind us to see that the tree had simply tipped over on to large Birch tree. Crap. All that anticipation for nothing.

After a lot of hum hawing and walking around the tree (not too close in case it started to fall) and chopping with an ax we decided that we needed reinforcements. Here is where my heroics began. With a fresh bowline knot tied to the back of the pick up truck, I extended my right foot to the floor and pulled. And pulled. And PULLED.

As I looked over my shoulder, I caught just a glimpse of the falling tree as I heard the panicked yells of the other lumberjacks and floored the truck.

Victory. It had fallen.

Well, no. 2/3 of it have fallen. The other 1/3 still hangs 50 feet in the hair, caught on a tree, dangling where you can't reach it with a ladder and you can't pull it with a rope.

Crap.

Grade: D+