Tracy's first go on the chainsaw!

Today was the day Tracy got to try out all her new chainsaw gear!

I'd given her a bit of a safety briefing at home, and she did very well, starting the saw safely and doing a bit of logging. The main idea was for her to get a feel for it prior to doing the training in a couple of weeks, so she'll only be doing simple stuff until then.

When looking for something to practice on, we remembered this tree, which I think must have been damaged during the oak felling and ended up hung up in an oak, with the stool lifting up. Time to take it down to give it a chance to sort itself out, and also a chance for me to try out the new Husqvarna 570 we bought on Monday.
It's a great saw! The 346XP we have is good, but this is bigger and more powerful. It even has two exhaust vents! ;-) Here I am doing a bit of snedding with it. It goes through the wood like a hot knife though butter, and sounds good at the same time:

Here's Tracy doing some logging with the 570, though she used the 346 the rest of the time:

Before long it was all tidied up:
With the growing tips down where we could see them we got a good picture of the chestnut flowers:
They have quite a distinctive smell up close! (and give Tracy hayfever for a couple of weeks each year...)

We did some other stuff too. including tidying up some of the produce so it's in a fit state for customers. Here's a new log pile, with some long straight poles behind that I'm keeping for myself:
Tracy also discovered the difference a sharp chain makes to a saw, comparing the brand new 570 to the 346 with a fairly blunt chain. I was put to work sharpening it:
Tracy had a go too though, and she'll have do do the whole maintenance thing on her course in August!

We took a quick walk over to the pond, and found this under the oak tree:
Any ideas on what bird hatched from it? We've not found a good egg ID website yet...

There was also evidence of rabbits or deer on the ride to the pond. This birch stool had been growing like crazy a few weeks ago, but isn't looking so great now:Still, while they're eating that they're not eating the chestnut or oak! Suppose they have to eat something anyhow, and it's nice to have them around.

The last thing of interest was Tim's logging machine. He'd left it coupled up to a small tractor, which had been powering it:
Judging form the pile of sawdust under it, it had seen some use! By the way, the black stuff here and in past pictures from sawmilling is not oil or anything else nasty. It's caused by tannins coming out of the oak sawdust.
Mike