Sweden 8

It was a few days ago this other work on the farm happened, but it's only been today or so that I've begun to get back feeling in my shoulders and arms. I take that back--I had feeling, but most of it had to do with lots and lots and lots of pain. This business of clearing a few fallen trees from the woods isn't easy, but I'd told my father-in-law that I was here to work in whatever work he needed me, and he took me up on it. Who knew that the work would be this hard? I mean, check out what was waiting for us (besides me, Ingemar and my father-in-law were there). A buck looking out for its mate. Can there be a better way to start? Now from here on in you'll notice that I don't have any shots of me actaully working, but you'll have to trust me. And here's something cool, I was allowed to use a chain saw. I got some quick training: on-off button (which I couldn't help switching to the off position (and here I know my brother will say, "René, you sly dog you, shutting that thing off to get what rest you could, you lazy bum, you." But I'll tell you what, I learned early on that I didn't quite have the knack that both my father-in-law and Ingemar had in yanking the cord and cutting the power on in one shot, nope, not me; I had to come up with a way of my own that oftentimes meant yanking that cord some ten times, so I'd only be making myself work more, not less, turning the thing off. Good try, little brother, but you've got to wake up much earlier than that to mess with this bird's early worm, or whatever.)), saw this way and that way, avoid trying to cut into rock or ground, and get at a limb way down close for pulling trees now cut down to logs out of forest that much easier. Oh, and lest we forget, don't mess with the power of the machine--it'll beat you every time. So in we went. It was only five or six downed trees we had to clear out of the woods (if we hadn't by June 1, there is danger of being fined if big brother comes around and sees you've not done the work, and worse, if the government don't get you, the bugs will). And let me tell you something else, these two seasoned woodsmen (one's sixty and the other's seventy), they're work horses, and me, I'm a work mouse. They kept going and going and going. I kept getting slower and slower and slower. Ingemar even tried making the last tree, the biggest of the lot, easier work for my by sending me to the crown of the tree where the limbs are really only branches, but even so I was stumped (excuse the pun). After a few hours of this non-stop business, we got done, and here's the proof. I'm the guy taking the picture. Farmer Lind, Ingemar, is on the phone, my father-in-law is on the right. And just so you won't think I'm talking baby trees here, I wanted you to see the girth on the biggest of the trees we worked on.
You can't tell by the picture but my hand's shaking from all the work. I'm telling you, I sweat on this one. And hurt for several days after. I still do sitting at this machine. But lest you think I am jaded about working, I'll leave you with this shot of a tiny flower that grows on the farm. I took it in spite of being dog-tired.