Rick's b.log - entry 2023/02/11

McCrispy!

The picture says it all.

Image © Lee Trewela / Cornwall Live.

I have only one thing to say: McDonalds, I salute you.

Humour as dark as that gets a thumbs up from me.

Like a knife through butter

So what I decided to do was to give the chainsaw a test. I checked the tension on the chain, filled the reservoir with chain oil, and let it run for twenty seconds without doing any work in order to let it get the oil where oil needed to be.

Once that was done, I gripped it really firmly, like my life depended on it, and stood with my legs far apart to keep as much of my soft squishy appendages away from the chain. A chain that moves at something like seventeen metres per second. If it's cool at hacking through wood, hacking pieces out of me would be a triviality.

The log that's sat for years because I couldn't do anything with it? Like a knife through butter.

The big log in pieces.

Took, literally, five minutes.

I didn't want to fell the tree by the original potato patch because it looks like the weight is on the building side, so it'll need a few limbs removed so it falls the right way.
And I couldn't chop the other log, my power lead isn't long enough.

So I turned around and saw this.

The big willow.

It's a big wild willow that put itself there. You can probably see that it's been culled once already. Mom and I did this many years ago. It took ridiculous amounts of effort. Damn near broke both of us getting the thing down. Only for it to immediately send up new shoots and grow right back.
Bastard.

This is what satisfaction looks like.

There were three primary limbs. One fell towards the well, the place I started tidying last year. Or was it the year before? I forget.
One fell towards the house (don't panic, didn't even breach the potager wall).
And the last one fell in the direction of that log, taking part of the hazelnut tree as collateral damage. Oops.

It is, I should say, a bloody mess now. It looks like the woods on the South Downs after the hurricane of 1987.

<sarcasm> This'll be fun to tidy up. </sarcasm>

But the primary thing? Well, you're looking at less than ten minutes of work. Actually, it took about forty minutes, but most of that was moving stuff so I could get to things safely and not doing dumb stuff like weilding a chainsaw while balancing on a log or whatever. The actual work? Less than ten minutes. The chain just slid through the wood.

When that was done, I had to dismantle the thing in order to clean out all the bits of wood.

Cleaning the mechanism.

Do you see those orange gloves in the background? Special chainsaw gloves, the right one is softer than the left. They cost as much as the chainsaw. Hmmm...
I noticed that it had used about 120ml of oil, or two thirds of what was provided. So I'll clearly need to go buy some chainsaw oil.

The edge of the blade

Foldable work table.

I bolted the disc grinder on to it, and used it to sharpen the hedge clippers. I... somehow managed not to get a picture of this.
I was probably doing it completely wrongly, gingerly holding the blade against the wheel at what looked to be about a 30° angle, whilst standing to the side in case the disc blows itself up.

Once that was done, I rummaged around and found one of my katanas. Being a replica, they were dull, although the tip was surprisingly sharp for a fake weapon.

Well, in case anything should necessitate protection. You know, the zombie apocalypse or being invaded by Russians. Whatever. It won't be a match for firearms, but it'll be better than nothing.

Slight adjustments to my fake sword.

It's not a real sword, and it's not slice-through-bamboo sharp, however it's no longer a dulled edge. A hefty whack in the throat ought to make an aggressor rethink their life choices. The tip is also sharper. Because, let's face it, you don't wave a sword in the air like Errol Flynn. You put the pointy end into your opponent. That's why Europeans devised the longsword. Rather useless at sword fights, but quite good at jabbing into the other person, with it's additional reach (clue in the name), you've inflicted damage on them before they've gotten close enough to touch you.
The Witcher tends to play this fairly straight, Game Of Thrones zig-zags all over the place depending on how badass the character is supposed to be, while Into The Badlands heads directly for rule of cool and offers swordfights about as ridiculous as the ones on Star Wars...but they look awesome (even if all that spinning exposes your back to your opponent and would probably be the moment they get killed).

Anyway. Evil bastard, pointy end, join the dots.

Note: In France, a katana (a real one!) is classed the same as other swords, knives, and daggers. That is to say, category D. The purchase and ownership of these weapons are autorised and unrestricted (except, obviously, to minors). However transporting such weapons without a legitimate reason is forbidden. In the case of transport, they must not be directly usable, should be sheathed and wrapped in some sort of container, preferably one that is sealed (by a lock or whatever). You must be able to demonstrate the legitimacy of reason in the case of a search. One might think that attending a reenactment or trade show might be legitimate, while the law clearly states that "carrying the weapon to better face an altercation" is not a legitimate reason. This is France, not Missouri.
The fine is €15,000 and 1 year in prison. So clearly it shall remain in a hidden place until the zombies arrive.

Then...

<sigh>

At least, for a noisy cat that is never quiet, she's not a yowler.

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David Pilling, 13th February 2023, 03:43

Glad the tree job worked out. Bonfire now maybe.

J.G.Harston, 13th February 2023, 20:43

I spent this afternoon clearing the ivy from the garden shed. I'd planned to spend it planting potatoes, but the tools were in the shed...

Rick, 13th February 2023, 21:19

Ivy is an annoying pest, isn't it?    Doesn't help that it's immune to just about everything softer than napalm...

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