My Testosterone is Raging

Dear Husband keeps pushing for more power. He started out with a puny one for the purpose of cleaning up the woods around our property from time to time. Then he got the brilliant idea to install a wood stove and had to buy a bigger one. When he realized that he needed even more power for falling trees and splitting huge rounds, he had to get a bigger one yet. I have to admit, I've protested a bit that the stove project (that Husband talked me into on the basis of how much money we'd save not buying propane) is taking longer and longer to pay itself off with all these chainsaw purchases. Maybe that's why Husband put the new big ass saw in my hands today--he knew if I got to try the thing out I'd be sold. Either that, or he was just too wiped out to use it anymore himself.

This afternoon he pulled up in the side yard with a truck bed full of rounds, some of them at least 36" in diameter. The kids and I pounced on him, helping him unload. There were a few smallish pieces the kids got to help with. Husband and I rolled the biggest ones off the tailgate onto the ground. I'm not a good judge of size, but I'm guessing these rounds weighed between 100 and 150 pounds each. I didn't ask how he got them on the truck in the first place.

When it was all unloaded, Husband asked if I wanted to try out the new chainsaw. Now, anyone who has been reading me for very long, or who knows me at all well, knows that I love me some big ass power. I also enjoy me some good chainsaw therapy. But I looked at the 4 1/2 foot saw skeptically for a moment, wondering if I could manage the thing well enough. I didn't pause for long before I ran to get my steel toed boots. Husband buckled me into his chainsaw chaps and gave me a quick demo. It didn't take much, I know how to run a saw...I just hadn't run one that big before. Before I knew it, I had sawed at least six 36" rounds in half and my adrenaline was pumping. That's when I knew why Husband said he needed bigger this winter. This thing took on those monster chunks of solid wood like a hot knife sliding through butter. Sawdust flew all around me as the motor roared. It was almost effortless.

As I stood back to rest and admire my work, I thought to myself that I should have been a lumberjack! I'm still longing for that log cabin on the side of a mountain in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, living off the land and away from society as I currently know it. I can grow a garden, I can run a chainsaw, I can drive a big ass lawn mower pretty good, too (not sure there'd be much need for this on the side of a mountain). I can also pull fish out of a lake, but aside from fish, I've never killed anything in my life (unless you count that gigantic raccoon I accidentally hit several months ago with the family mobile). Despite all these skills, unless I decide to become vegetarian, I wouldn't survive living off the land without learning to shoot a hunting rifle or a bow...and having the nerve to kill wild game. While I have my strong reservations about that last part, if someone offered me a log cabin on the side of a mountain in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, I think I might just decide to learn.

For the record, if I suddenly disappear without a trace, I haven't been kidnapped; just follow the hum of a big ass chainsaw into the Rocky Mountains and you'll find me.