Ted's Blog

No man is complete without a chainsaw. Dad had to wait until his 60's before he got one. Jeb was in his 40's when he got his. But this weekend I made the move. Given that Dad's Craftsman is horrible (I think maybe a new chain would do wonders for his, which mostly just polishes tree trunks) and Jeb has some problems with his Husqvarna, I opted for a Stihl MS 250. Stihl is always rated higly and I haven't had much trouble with my Stihl trimmer, so it made sense for me to get a Stihl chainsaw which uses the same 50:1 fuel mix. A guy at work also swears by his Stihl chainsaw and when it broke he went out and bought another one, a little bit larger. The funny thing about that is he then also went out and got his old chainsaw repaired and continues to use it because it is lighter. He has had the newer one for a couple of years and has yet to use it.

Anyway, I took the chainsaw to Susan's and went to town on one of several trees that blew down during Hurricane Ivan. I think maybe she had a microburst or tornado at her house because she had a cluster of pretty tall trees snapped off at their trunks and one large tree was knocked completely over and landed on her house (causing remarkably little damage, but crushing the eave completely in that spot).

The Stihl went through everything easily. What a perfect tool for that job! But just as hard was moving all the pieces out to the street. I'm pretty happy with the purchase and still have plenty of trees to work on at Susan's (but not the one on the house which will require a crane and $3,000 to remove).