Lumberjackin'

Parker is taking over the blog today to write about his latest little project! :)

...................

So I got canceled Friday morning and had a little free time to kill. Chelsea and I have made a conscious effort to do things that are more productive (ie learn or do something instead of play video games). I was driving home a little frustrated at the fact that I would not get to fly and felt like working in the beautiful (winter?spring?) air (air perfect for flying). That's when I came up with the idea of chopping up the log that had fallen onto our fence. The tree fell over a year ago and has done tremendous damage to our perimeter! Obviously I had to act fast!

I made a quick stop by Lowe's and surprised Chelsea when I got home with my new axe …. needless to say, she was not impressed.

Jenny was not impressed either.

I was prepared in my mind for a long morning of hacking away at this log. The guy at Lowe's thought I was a little crazy when I told him the log was probably two and a half feet in diameter (from what I remembered; I hadn't been outside the fence in a while). I braced myself and took my first swing and completely buried the axe head. Two swings later and the log was broken in two. What I hadn't prepared for was wood rot.

Found this little guy in the ruins

Still feeling in a productive mood, I decided to repair the fence the log had knocked over. I had hoped that it would be simple, but there were two problems with the fence: 1) Warped wood from having the log fall on it and then apply pressure for at least a year 2) The fence was buried in at least three inches of dirt/"compost"

Since the wood was so warped, I eventually had to take the whole section apart and then reassemble it again. I didn't want to spend any money, so I reused all fence pickets no matter how warped or broken (a few did not want to come off easily). I also only had short screws, which made for some creative screwing with a ¼'' counter sink bit.

Before

After

Luckily the project wasn't too hard and I completed it before the realtor showed our house at 2:00. Hopefully whoever is reading this feels comforted that your American tax dollars were hard at work on this business day.