Wildlife, sport and activities, sometimes all at once

Call me the Chainsaw Mama. I'm a forty-year-old single mom and I think chain saws are bitchin'.

I moved to Mammoth to get out of the city -- to ski, climb and ride a mountain bike. But there is more to living in the mountains. My former boyfriend was the wannabe mountain man type.

"Be sure to rent a place with a wood burning stove," said. "I'll help you get wood so you can save lots of money on your heating bill."

It sounded good until the wannabe dropped out of my life and left me without a chain saw. Suddenly, I was faced with a four-hundred dollars a month electric bill. Running the furnace was not an option. I determined to get my own firewood.

Luckily, I made friends with some locals.

"We'll get our trailer and go out with you next weekend," Jack said without a moment's hesitation. Jack has graying hair in a ponytail and supports a full beard and an earring. He works for the local phone company and there is no doubt after looking at his hands that he is used to hard work.

"Oh, that's OK," I said. "I'm sure I'll be able to manage."

"We'll be at your house at nine o'clock." Jack's pretty mountain wife, Claudia, said. I felt like one of the school children she taught at the middle school. And that was that. I had a wooding crew.

They sent me to the Forest Service where I bought a wooding permit. It was $15 per cord. I bought three cords. The ranger recited the rules.

"OK, that all sounds manageable." I said trying to sound convincing. I grabbed the paperwork and headed for the door.

Jack told me that on his lunch breaks he would go out to look for downed trees. "It's not always easy to find them. If possible, we'd like to find trees that have been down for a year or two so they're good and dry but not rotten yet."

In preparation for Saturday I borrowed a chainsaw from my boss.

I also made arrangements to borrow a couple of teenaged sons from another girlfriend. Saturday morning I dressed in my old jeans, a flannel shirt, and my heavy hiking boots.

Then the fun began. Well, it almost began.

There is an art to starting a chainsaw. Flip the start switch, pull out the choke, hold the lever on the handle, then pull. One, two, three. Push the little pump button a couple of times to prime the motor. One, two, three. Adjust the choke. One two three. Rest my arm. One two three, one two three, one two three. I looked for help. Jack came over and gave it a try. One, two, three, the chain saw roared to life.

I carried the chainsaw with both hands, careful of where I stepped. I slid my eye protection into place then gave the chainsaw some gas. It didn't take me long to figure out that you let the weight of the chainsaw do the work. Just hold it in place, tipping it back and forth a little and it will cut it's way through. One round cut. Piece of cake. I started on another.

While Jack and I cut, Claudia began knocking off the limbs with a hatchet. She did it like it was her favorite thing to do, and I really think at that moment it was. My daughter and the boys carried the rounds to the trailer. When the trailer was full we drove back to town and dumped the rounds in my driveway. Then we started on a second load.

In all we cut about six trees. Six, seventy-year-old trees. Six trees that poked their heads out of the soil long before I was born. These six trees I would consume in one winter. I watched as my blade cut through the years of growth rings. I wanted to say a little prayer of thanks, but with the chainsaws blaring in my ears it didn't seem like the right time.

Cut-by-cut I worked through my tree. I watched Jack, with a bigger chainsaw, out of the corner of my eye. I realized I was developing chainsaw envy.

"We have enough wood to fill the trailer for the last time," Jack said after a time.

I dropped the chainsaw to my side and turned it off. I sighed, partly because our work was done, but mostly in response to the silence. It was such a relief to have all the chainsaws quiet. My ears rejoiced. I was covered head to toe in sawdust. It was in my ears, down my shirt and stuck to the sweat on my face. Maybe the old flannel shirt was a little too warm for this lumberjack.

For the first time in my life I would know where my heat came from. The heat would come from trees I had gotten to know personally. I knew where they had lived and died and it was by my sweat that they were now in my driveway. They still had to be split and stacked in the shed.

I watched Jack as he loaded his gas can and chainsaw into the trailer then joined Claudia in the cab of their truck. They waved as they pulled away. I looked with envy at the chainsaw in the back of the trailer.

Next year I'm getting a bigger chainsaw.