Memorial Day.
The first thing I did after stepping from my bedroom was to unfurl my American flag and proudly place the Star and Stripes in the mounting bracket on my front porch brick column. There it waved in the muggy breeze as a sign of my respect for those who have served.
The Memorial tribute being now set, it was time to turn to the next item on my to-do list. The old Liquid Amber tree, known in these parts as a Sweet Gum, had displayed wondrous shades of reds and purples over the past handful of Autumns, throwing splendid colors upon our side yard. But, it's service had run its course and after several years of drought and nature's own morbidity, the Sweet Gum tree became mostly a snag of dead and dried wood. It was (or has been) time to bring colorful sentinel down to be laid up for next Autumn's firewood.
With a rip and roar of my chainsaw, I lopped of some of the branched that weighted the trunk toward my neighbor's roof, giving the remaining branched weight and impetus for a fall-line between our two houses and onto my half of the lawn. I made the notch at a comfortable working height, and angled it at what looked like a safe direction - away from the eves and expecting it to fall toward the street and land upon the grass. With my notch cut out of about 1/3 of the diameter; I then made my back cut. With a creak, a few hushed splintering sounds and a whoomp. It was down, and it landed right where I had planned it.
It was a day to remember the fallen.
The first thing I did after stepping from my bedroom was to unfurl my American flag and proudly place the Star and Stripes in the mounting bracket on my front porch brick column. There it waved in the muggy breeze as a sign of my respect for those who have served.
The Memorial tribute being now set, it was time to turn to the next item on my to-do list. The old Liquid Amber tree, known in these parts as a Sweet Gum, had displayed wondrous shades of reds and purples over the past handful of Autumns, throwing splendid colors upon our side yard. But, it's service had run its course and after several years of drought and nature's own morbidity, the Sweet Gum tree became mostly a snag of dead and dried wood. It was (or has been) time to bring colorful sentinel down to be laid up for next Autumn's firewood.
With a rip and roar of my chainsaw, I lopped of some of the branched that weighted the trunk toward my neighbor's roof, giving the remaining branched weight and impetus for a fall-line between our two houses and onto my half of the lawn. I made the notch at a comfortable working height, and angled it at what looked like a safe direction - away from the eves and expecting it to fall toward the street and land upon the grass. With my notch cut out of about 1/3 of the diameter; I then made my back cut. With a creak, a few hushed splintering sounds and a whoomp. It was down, and it landed right where I had planned it.
It was a day to remember the fallen.
| I pause to remember the fallen |
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