Friday, 5/30

- Since both of the big chainsaws are out of commision, we tried for the third time to clear the two downed trees on the upper loop of the Poplar Springs trail. We used the arborist's saw, a tiny little baby chainsaw meant for taking with you as you climb up trees. We got the thing started (not easily) and then the damn thing was too dull to cut through the tree (and of course we don't have any way of sharpening the blade at Merkle). It smoked like crazy, and left burn marks on the wood. So, Tara and Kristin and I sawed the trees with hand saws, lopped anything smaller than our wrists, and wailed on them like crazy-people with an axe. Mission accomplished.

- Took the red-eared slider out for a walk. It was pretty chill.

Tuesday, 5/27

- Attempt number 2 to clear the downed trees on the Poplar Springs trail was aborted when the chainsaw refused to turn off. We decided that this was probably a safety hazard. Here's what we did, and if anyone knows anything about chainsaws I'd be curious to know if this is a problem or not:

This chainsaw has three settings - off, regular, and cold start. You set it to cold start if you haven't used it for a while, keep trying to start it til it revs (it'll just rev once, then stop). Then you flip it up to regular, and start it again until it revs, and then you can use it normally. We did that, and then turning it to the off switch did nothing - it just kept running. We pulled it down to cold start, and that turned it off, but that probably can't be good for it...