Yesterday, there was a violent windstorm in my area. The wind howled all day, which made me worry about a couple of things. First, of course, I worried about my shingles, which I mentioned last week. They are all starting to heavily curl and provide ample surface area for the wind to catch. I fully expected to go out yesterday and see a few hundred had been blown off the roof.

That, thankfully, didn’t happen.

Secondly, I worried about the trees around my house. I am blessed with a number of trees, ranging from tiny to rather large (large for here, that is. They’re not sequoias). And one of them blew over a few years ago. That, of course, disturbed the ecosystem of the yard and I half expected several more would fall over in sympathy.

Well, perhaps not.

Anyway, when that happened, I had to immediately go get a chain saw. I have in my possession two buck saws that are quite sharp. But sharp buck saws still require a massive amount of arm-use to cut up a full-size tree. Well, it wasn’t that big of a tree, really, only about 8 inches thick at the base. Still, who wants to cut through eight inches of maple with a buck saw?
Since I do not, I bought a chain saw. I was lucky because I found a used one for a low price. Like my lawnmower, it is electric. Not a problem, though, since I really only needed it to cut up that tree. And the chain only skipped off the bar five or six times.
I must say, it was enjoyable. In no time, I was covered in oil and sawdust. And I had a massive pile of cut up logs. But then I had no more tree to cut up. But I also didn’t want to stop.

So, I started looking around for things to cut up.

Of course, I thought, I can cut back some of the lower limbs of the trees that are encroaching on my garden path (a fancy name for a dirt track that leads from the driveway to my door). So, I cut away at those and then had to cut that stuff up.
I saw some bigger branches on the big maple trees that needed to be cut down. Or they were calling out to me to be cut. So I obliged them. That took some effort, because I had to stand on a ladder and cut them off in sections.
That made my pile of logs grow. I kept a larger piece uncut for some future project that involved a big chunk of wood. It’s still sitting in the yard.

But then I truly was out of things to cut up so I begrudgingly put the saw away.

And yesterday yielded no more material to chop, since all trees remained standing in the strong wind. I guess I put a goodly amount of fear into them with my mighty 14-inch chainsaw wielding.
But I still have a number of cut up logs to deal with. They are sitting on the ground in a pile next to where I burn such things. I have burned a great many of the pieces, but I think I should try to do something more interesting with them. But what can be done with a few hundred pieces of wood, about 16 inches long and 2 or 3 inches thick?
.

Suggestions welcome.

I smell smoke in the wind.