All I Ever Wanted

or life's gift to me


tree stuck
Originally uploaded by Contrary Goddess.

This was the tree. You can't see the top in this photo, but it was big, tall, and exceedingly dead. Which spells dangerous. When cut down it could fall 350 degrees clear but chose to twist into another tree and hang. Luckily, the horse could safely get it down.


the Duke
Originally uploaded by Contrary Goddess.

Today was the day. Any day I get to play with the horse is a good day. And he thought it was good when he saw the harness coming instead of the bareback riding pad.


horse harnessed
Originally uploaded by Contrary Goddess.

So add harness, a chain around the butt end of the tree, a singletree, a husband to hook and unhook him while I teamstered, a bunch of tugs, first in one direction, then in the other, and finally it came down. It took more than an hour. The horse was frustrated because he likes to pull, not tug, but this was a tug sort of job and he did great.


stump & log
Originally uploaded by Contrary Goddess.

And so there is the stump and the log, finally. You can see from the angle of the stump why it had to be pulled side to side instead of up the hill. Even after it was off the stump, it was still hung and had to go side to side, and couldn't just go to one side because of other trees in the way. Such is life in the forest.


butt end log
Originally uploaded by Contrary Goddess.

And this is the butt end, with chain. You can barely see that the top end of the log is now tied up between two trees but that is easy to cut loose. He just couldn't pull it any further. And then when he started up our drive with the heavy part, he started slipping and just refused to pull anymore. I figured he knew what he was doing and that we were close enough so I unharnessed him and took him and donkey to the front fields to graze.

All that could be wanted from a day.