3 Lumberjack Pancakes I cooked up early Saturday morning.
We were really busy on Friday and Saturday and took all of Sunday off to recover. Friday night as soon as Heath, Pumpkin and I were all home we headed to the Nuts and Bolt’s Ace Hardware store to buy my new chainsaw. They had the saw I wanted and the size bar (the thin part that sticks out and the chain rides on) I wanted but would not sell me them together. Something about their computer system not having that option even though their website shows it. Instead of arguing with them we headed over to Bledsoe’s rentals and told them what I want. They had no problem getting it all put together and selling me my new toy.
It’s a Stihl Farm Boss 290 with a 20 inch bar on it. We were pretty hungry when we got home and it was Heath’s night to cook dinner so she got started and after firing up my saw and cutting a few test logs I helped her out. She followed a recipe in a weight watchers cookbook and went to the store for several ingredients we don’t usually stock.
It was pretty tasty stuff and we ate it all up. After dinner friends started to show up and we moved downstairs. We watched some Olympics and just hung out and talked. At some point we decided we needed to make home made ice cream and got our our ice cream ball.
Having so many people around made it easy to keep the ball moving and shaking. We just formed a circle and tossed it around from person to person. After 1/2 the time was up we scraped the sides and mixed it up to try to keep it an even consistency.
Then we shook it up some more and then dished it out and ate it. There were a lot of us so we didn’t get much but it was a nice taste. After the ice cream we all relaxed a bit and slowly people headed out. Then Heath and I went to bed. In the morning I woke up before my alarm and was too wound up to go back to sleep. I got some stuff ready then started making pancakes, eggs and sausage.
Most of the pancakes were blueberry but some were apple cinnamon. Stephen and Jon came by and helped eat breakfast then we headed a few blocks away to find our trees. It was plenty bright out when we got started though it does not look like it in this picture.
The big tree in the middle is the second one we cut down. The first one is already on the ground in front of it and the 3rd is on the right edge of the picture.
The first tree I cut a notch out of the side then cut from the other end and eventually it laid over. The second tree Jon started in the same way with my new saw. 
He spent a lot more effort on his wedge getting it just the right angle in just the right spot. If this tree went the wrong way it could make a lot more work for us or destroy something. Eventually he had it right and started cutting from the other side. However he did not get far before the tree started to lean the wrong way. It pinched my saw really tight and got it stuck. It was leaning the wrong way because of a large branch pointing the wrong way. We tried a few ideas then decided the branch must go first. You can see the start of the branch in the picture above and the whole thing in the pic before that. The branch was high so we leaned a ladder against the tree and it was a bit dangerous so since it was my project I climbed the ladder with Jon’s saw.
We talked about what may and may not happen a bit and then I began to cut. Just as we predicted I cut through the branch and it fell, then the weight of the tree was changed a bunch so Jon’s cuts before did their job and the tree started to fall. Unfortunately I was on a ladder holding a running chain saw that was leaning against the tree. I calmly and quickly climbed down the ladder and jumped the last few steps to the ground right as the tree fell just where we wanted it.
I had been filming Jon cut but when things went wrong I put away the camera and after the crazy cut we all wished we had caught it. We talked about how great things went and how bad they could have gone then got to work. Work was the name of the game for the next few hours. Stephen got started downhill from the tree on the branch we cut off. 
Jon got started on the rest of the branches on the trunk. 
And I got started on the trunk. There was plenty of wood to cut and lots to do so we all traded saws and worked on different parts of the trees and eventually took down this little hedge tree too. 
The owner was really glad to see all these trees go down for free and could not wait to see all the sun his garden would get this summer. We cut and cut and cut and hauled out brush. 
As Jon was finishing up the hedge and splitting the biggest logs Stephen and I loaded up Jon and my truck beds and drove them to my house and unloaded the wood. 
The 3rd load of both trucks took all 3 of our strengths to get the big chunks from the trunk into the beds. But once those were loaded we were done. We packed up and headed home to unload the last of the wood into a mighty pile our front. 
I am guessing this will be almost half my wood supply for next year.
It was after 2pm when we finished and we were hungry so headed to Chelly’s with the girls and babies. We filled up on chips and salsa right away then I ordered a fantastic burger. 
No really it was called the fantastic burger and it was pretty fantastic. After lunch we all headed home to take showers and relax. I took my shower and when I got out Brian and Courtney were over.
We had a beer while Heath was in the shower then all of us went to the Home and Garden show at OP Convention Center. I had gotten free tickets from work and we walked up and down every isle looking around. It was not really awesome but was not bad and we saw some cool stuff.
After the show we were getting hungry so started making a fancy home made sushi dinner.
We had planned to watch our how to DVD again before starting but could not find it so winged it. We cut up a bunch of veggies and fake crab, shrimp, tuna, and cream cheese. Then we each took turns rolling up a tube of sushi then cut it into bites and put it on a platter.
Most of our rolls seemed to be the normal size but a few were jumbo with a lot of stuff in them.
After we each had a few turns and all the meat was used up we were left with this platter of sushi.
So we sat down with some rice and wine and soup and all the sushi and got busy.
It was really good and though it looked like a ton of sushi it did not give us too much trouble. After dinner we just stayed at the table and went right into dessert. We had a bunch of chocolate and a port wine we got on our valentines weekend tour.
After dessert we put Pumpkin to bed and headed downstairs to hang out the rest of the night.
In the morning I made fried potatoes and biscuits and gravy then we crashed on the couch for the day. Heath, Pumpkin and I watched everything new on our DVR and a few movies and just relaxed and ate all day long. My back was pretty sore from lifting some heavy logs so it was easy to stay unmotivated. We had giant chicken wraps for dinner then all 3 of us went to bed early.