Well, as a manly-man[sup]TM[/sup] and an Oregonian, I have every kind of saw known to man, or woman. Except that I don’t have a worm-drive saw. hangs head But I do have two sidewinders (the regular kind of saw) so I’m hoping that makes up for it. And I have a bow saw. And two of those foldy saws, except one has a wing nut and one has a little springy button instead.
Anyway, I got all chainsaw-y a coupla weekends ago. See, we had this maple tree in our parking strip. A parking strip is that bit of lawn between the sidewalk and the street. It’s kinda a no-person’s-land (notice how I’m being all PCish here. I’m a sensitive man, I am) 'cause the city expects you to take care of it but they think that they get to tell you what to do with it.
Back to the tree; we had three trees in our parking strip, a dogwood, a little Japanese maple, and a regular maple. The dogwood and the Japanese maple are evenly spaced in the strip and both are about 9-10 feet tall. Then there was this regular maple. It was about 30 feet tall, and next to our driveway. It wasn’t too bad when the neighbors had two big maples in their parking strip, but then they cut them down. Three burly men with a big truck and chain saws and stuff spent all day cuting them down and cutting them up. And they were rotten in the middle (the Maples, not the burley men, who might’ve been rotten too, but probably not.) So I decided I’d rather cut ours down before it got too big for me to handle by myself. So I did. With my little (18") Poulan chain saw.
I don’t have a fireplace though, thus no way to burn the wood constructively, so I’m taking it to my Mother-in-Law later on this summer. She lives about 100 miles away. I could give it to the GirlChild and Hubby, who live about 1/2 mile away, but they didn’t come over and help me cut it down, so they can just cut up their own firewood. Gramma’s a cut-up too, but not where firewood is concerned, so she gets it.
Except I’ve gotta get the chainsaw tuned up before I can cut up the rest of the branches. I’ll take it to Midget Motors. They’re some grumpy old guys with big bellies who work on small engines, (internal combustion types, not vertically challenged Native-Americans). (Still being PC-ish here.) Of course I could do it myself, being a Manly-man and all, but, ummmm… they’re way faster and all that stuff.
Well, gotta go now. There’s trash to be burned, and other manly stuff.
I don’t like chainsaws. They’re almost as scary as lathes. Yes, I’m afraid of lathes, my professor did just a little too good a job during the safety lecture. A whole semester and I never once used a lathe, which is pretty amazing (or sad) considering the projects I did. But I don’t have a chisel stuck through my eye, either.
I did no manly stuff this weekend unless you count hooking up the washer and cussing under my breath when I broke a nail. Perfectly good thumbnail, gone down to the quick. I also cussed when the waste hose leaked water all over hell and gone, otherwise known as my downstairs neighbor’s laundry closet wall. Even duct tape isn’t keeping it from leaking so it’s off to Home Depot. I want to get some of that nifty tape that seals up just this sort of stuff. Don’t know what it’s called but I’ll know it when I see it. If it doesn’t work, I may move into more advanced adhesives.
Ooh, I survived the field trip. All my students were wonderful and I hardly caused any accidents driving the humongous van we rented. Though there were a couple of spots where I felt like I was playing the Sandra Bullock role in a low-budget version of Speed.
I don’t own a saw and I haven’t used a saw in years and years. I do, however, have a washing machine that I use on a regular basis and I just want to ask: Don’t washing machine manufacturers know that short people wash clothes, too? I am not all that short–I do fit into the height range of the average American woman, albeit at the very low end–but I have to stand on my tippy-toes to get everything out of the washer. One of these days I’m going to over-balance and do a header right into the washer basket thingy! And this is not a big old industrial size washer, just your basic, found in most homes model. My sister, who is five inches shorter than me (she would say she is four inches shorter, but I’m a stickler for the truth. Well, a stickler for the truth about her height, anyway). So, my sister would need a footstool to do the laundry. This may be some sort of conspiracy against barely average-height individuals and their more height-challenged siblings. I think the government should form a commission to investigate.
Mattocks I know as pickaxes and a polaski I’ve never heard of at all, but I’m familar with halberds, pikes and poleaxes–which look a lot like halberds to the uninitiated, but when you know what to look for, it’s easy to tell them apart. (Hint, halberds are all one blade, poleaxes have several components, and are shorter than halberds.) Pikes, spears, halberds, glaives, lances–now you’re talking fun stuff!
That’s alright - because we don’t have to take our clothes off (uh-hunh) to have a good time.
I have tools. But I’m a girly girl, so no saws, chain or otherwise. I even had to bring my car in to the service area at my gas station to have my license plates replaced a month ago, because they were put on with the kind of screws that I didn’t own a tool with.
I do have a manly friend, though - and he installed some awesome overhead fans for me this weekend. In return, I am taking him and his wife out to dinner.
I almost got excited there. Look! It’s Den Mum! A new MMPer! But it was really Bumba. And the real Dennie has all of three posts and two were Bumba messing around which leaves one authentic post. And it wasn’t here. I feel almost slighted. Only not “almost”, it’s fully slighted. If that Dennie actually shows up here, why I’ll… welcome here with open arms into the MMP Clique. (Did you know we are a Clique? Yes we are. But we’re not all exclusive, we’ll let anyone play. Even Swampy. See how low our standards are?)
A chainsaw AND lopers? With those 2 items, you can handle all your yard needs (except for that grass stuff. Roundup will take care of that.)
When I bought my first house, I bought a chainsaw. My grandpa would be so proud (he was a real lumberjack, walking on logs in the river and everything), except for 1 thing. It’s an electric chainsaw. Not big gas powered one that makes more noise then a diesel truck. My little electric one makes hardly any noice, but it still cuts down trees and cuts up branches, so I’m happy. And the lopers will take out anything that is to small for the chainsaw.
I am seriously contemplating this as a new sig line. Being as I like being a low standard and all. That’s me. I bring a little classliness to all situations.
I have never owned a glaive, but I’ve had a pike and a spear. And a sword, of course. I was supposed to get a mace for my birthday one year, but the forge blew up and it never got made. I used to get such wonderful birthday presents. Really, I still do, but of an entirely different kind.
Nobody give me weapons anymore. <sniff>
Rue! I knew you were my kinda guy - camping and chainsawing and all that good stuff! I really want to go camping this summer. The Boyfriend does not understand the allure. I need serious advice on how to convert The Boyfriend to appreciate the marvels of sleeping in a trailer camper and staying up at night telling stories and playing guitar and singing songs and making s’mores and drinking, and most importantly, making and playing with the campfire. I figure iffen I can get him to like that, maybe he’ll join me in learning how to ride motorcycles sometime, too. I guess I am just The Adventuresome Sort or something.
I own one bowsaw, and that’s all I have in the way of saws. It is for Christmas treebranch pruning. I don’t really need a chainsaw, being as I have no fence. I am not a girly-girl, because I have tools and I’m working construction right now. Does that make me a manly-girl?
I’m just posting again so y’all can see my new Rue sig line. I didn’t get rid of the cool sig line Kallessa gave me cause it’s got burly men beer, cookies and apple pie in it. I mean, if any sig line’s gonna describe me that’s got to be it.
-swampbear (I guess this counts as shameless post padding)
The Mattock in Faxanadu took forever to find. It was like looking for the Pope in your chimney- you kept thinking you weren’t going to ever find the Pope there, but every time you went back to that stupid elf under the tree he told you the same thing: “The Pope is in your chimney”.
'Cept I did find the mattock eventually, but never found the Pope in my chimney.
'Course, I live in an apartment, so not having a chimney might have had something to do with it.
So now all I need to know is what Rue is planning on doing with it.
On a more manly note, I made my own screwdriver (no, not the drink, the tool). I took a welding/metal working class in college (one of the few useful courses I took) and one of the projects was to make your own screwdriver. We started out with just a stick of iron, heated it up, banged one end flat, and shaped it appropriately. Then, we took some plastic stock, tossed it on a lathe, and shaped it like a screwdriver handle. The we drilled a hole in the handle, heated the steel, and crammed it in the handle. How’s that for manly?
-lighting(I got an A on my screwdriver project)tool
I’m back from my conjugal weekend - did y’all miss me?
As luck would have it, I’m getting another chainsaw this weekend. My inlaws are giving us a bunch of the tools they used when building their house so we don’t have to buy 'em when we build our house. Last week, I got the pneumatic framing nailer, and I’m supposed to go back on Friday to pick up the chainsaw and some plumbing stuff and other things.
We do have a wussy little electric chainsaw, but we’re getting a manly gas powered one. We’ve also got a table saw, a circular saw, a jig saw, two bow saws. a chop saw, a couple of crosscut saws, and a few more that I can’t recall off the top of my head. But it’s not enough. FairyChatDad wants a band saw. Every time we go into Lowe’s or Home Depot, he finds a band saw and he rubs up against it. I pretend I’m there alone. He’s so weird.
And I, for one, am disappointed that Rue won’t be sunbathing nekkid, although I don’t want him getting sun cancer. And it’s not like I’m a voyeur or anything. It’s just that, um…
