Dave vs. the Sugar pine. Part 2! (Also, how to terrify a boyfriend in 3 easy steps).

As mentioned in "Dave vs. the Sugar pine" Part 1. The massive tree that was felled not only claimed the chainsaw as sacrifice for it's toppling, but it also took out several smaller trees in it's path as it descended to earth in entirely the wrong direction. A few of these saplings fell in such a way that they crossed over the creek for which the area is named creating a potential hazard in terms of floating debris and blockages. Luckily, the damage was not urgent enough to require immediate intervention and we Dave was able to save removal of those trees for another day, after he ordered a bigger chainsaw...

So, a few weeks down the road Patricia, Cliff, Amanda, and her boyfriend came up to the mountain retreat for a long weekend and to help remove the trees crossing the creek. Without letting them fall into the creek of course. Dave's love for powerful things extends to his vehicles and he owns a Ford Excursion, which is one of the largest passenger vehicles available for purchase before you need to visit the DMV for a license upgrade. This SUV has so far survived carrying, towing, pulling and ramming everything Dave could think of to throw at it so this time it was going on "Pull the trees across the creek" duty. After a few attempts at burying the Excursion in the ashy soil, or dropping it into the creek, it was discovered that the trees crossing the creek were still firmly enough attached to their bases that they weren't going to pull out without some assistance. Dave took this as his cue to break out his new, more powerful chainsaw in order to release the offending trunks. It's worth mentioning at this point that we were all at the pointy end of the trees and the nearest real bridge to cross was a good half mile away. Unshackling the Excursion and driving back across would be far too much work so Dave's solution was instead to cross to the far bank by walking across the 6 inch tree trunks while holding his massive chainsaw. Amanda's boyfriend at this point of time appeared convinced that he was about to witness a fatality and was frantically trying to think of ways to get back to the city where gun obsessed, chainsaw wielding septuagenarians with hoodies promising murder were few and far between. Dave, in an amazing display of balance and coordination did manage to cross the creek and began happily sawing through the base of the tree, while standing on the trunk over the water which worked great until the chainsaw became stuck. Fortunately this was easily resolved by bouncing up and down on the tree until the chainsaw was freed so that he could continue this task, on all three trees crossing the creek. As often happens in Hat Creek, no one was seriously injured and the trees were all removed that weekend with only a slight case of PTSD for our visitor.