Dead Trees, A Chain Saw, & Power Lines

On Saturday I helped my dad cut down a few of his neighbor's trees. Not that it would be any more mundane than any other outdoor activity requiring hard manual labor. Actually he had asked me to help out earlier in the week, and how could I resist an afternoon of cutting down trees? After all, they were already dead and my dad's neighbor wanted them gone.

So off I went, and found my dad hard at work on the first tree. The first thing I noticed is that he had a cable tied around the trunk of the tree, and the other end was fastened around the bumper of his pickup. Ok, nothing horribly out of the ordinary there. That is, until my eyes followed the tree up near the top, where some power lines were nearby.

At that point I knew why my dad wanted my help.

In recalling all of the warnings I have heard about being around power lines, conventional wisdom tells me that this could be one of the less intelligent things I would be doing with my life. But, what the heck. We only live once, right?

So, I got my fair share of chain saw duty. We managed to get the trees sawed down, and my arms were numb for the rest of the day. And, the power lines remained undisturbed by our activity. All in a day's work!