cutting 1000 lb. branches from trees.I did.All it takes is a split second of inattention and a whole bunch of that weight can wind up on your body.
I got lucky. It only caught my big toe and the one next to it.That one is black,red,purple and bleeding. And broken. Fractured about 3/8" back from the tip of the bone.
I’m walking ,sort of. But I can still paddle!
OUCH!!
Been there done that, got the funny thumbnail to prove it. Heal quick and remember paddling relaxes your body and promotes healing.
SYOTR
Randy
The nurse asked"Were there any
expletives shouted when this happened?" I don’t know about expletives, but there were a bunch of SOBs and a few MFs before the pain got so bad I couldn’t yell any more.
Here’s the real question, String:
How much were you saving by DIY’ing the tree branch removal vs. hiring a pro? And how much will your ER trip be out of pocket? Are you still ahead?
Once worked for a tree/landscape company in college. I was with the boss one day doing quotes. An elderly college professor didn’t like our quote of $75 to cut down a measly 4" diameter tree. That was on Friday. The boss showed me his obit in the paper on Monday. Broken neck and crushed skull. One step left or right would have saved him, but he tried to out run it, as many do in a panic.
Sometimes the money saved is not worth the sacrifice . . . .
YOS
It’s not nice to fool with
Mother Nature, she has your wife’s back.
Hope you heal quickly
you said it
Oh Mayun
Sorry to hear it. Heal up quick.
Hey neighbor,
Hope your toes come round right in a hurry. I pasted in a wonderful poem on marriage by Wendell Berry. It’s help me roll up many times. All the best, John
The Country of Marriage
Wendel Berry
I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs of birds opening around you as you walk. You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth’s empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.
III.
Sometimes our life reminds me of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing and in that opening a house, an orchard and garden, comfortable shades, and flowers red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways to be made anew day after day, the dark richer than the light and more blessed, provided we stay brave enough to keep on going in.
IV.
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was, for to approach you I have given up the light and all directions. I come to you lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.
V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange of my love and work for yours, so much for so much of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are–that puts us in the dark. We are more together than we know, how else could we keep on discovering we are more together than we thought? You are the known way leading always to the unknown,and you are the known place to which the unknown is always leading me back. More blessed in you than I know, I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing not belittled by my saying that I possess it. Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.
VI.
What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.
VII.
I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark, containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.I give you the life I have let live for the love of you: a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road, the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life that we have planted in the ground, as I have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself again and again, and satisfy–and this poem, no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.
The squirrels
dropped that branch on your toe.
Don’t mess with the squirels
They are organized
At least the chainsaw didn’t get you
Small consolation, I know. I’ve only tangoed with a chain saw once and escaped with only 12 stitches. Now I wear chaps.
And steel-toed boots.
-rs
Umm…
Your Husky dealer has a great video on chainsaw safety…
Jim
Steel toes!
I can tell you from personal experience that they will save you lots of pain. Chainsaws, tree trunks and gravity are not to be messed with unless you have a clear, calm, head.
I’ve only broken toes by running into things, it is amazing how the smallest part can control the whole body.
Step#1-Ignore wife.
Wait a minute!
If you were wearing ear muffs, the running saw would have drowned out your wife’s voice completely.
Were you sawing without ear protection? If so, I am going to have to put you in the “rank novice” category. String, get some saw training before tou cut off something important (like your control hand).
Jim
Steel toes . . .
The summer I worked for a landscape/tree company, I needed high ankle boots to prevent my ankle being rolled. But when I asked about steel toes before buying a pair, my boss and the other guys answered adamantly “NO!” They said a good size log chunk would crush the steel toe around your foot, and trap it. They all refused to wear them.
Is that a complete myth? The independent industrial contractor I work for in sales requires them of our labor, and even I have to wear them because I tour plants often. The plants I visit require them as a standard also. I never did buy into the whole “trapped toe” argument.
YoS
Myth Busters did an episode…
on steel toes, adout weight crushing the steel toe insert and cutting off the toes… the result was, the weight required to crush the steel toe would crush your toes to mush anyway…at some point, weight of that magnitude overcomes all protective measures.
That was my suspicion.
Thanks for the confirmation. Of course, when one of the guys showed me the 24" long scar above his knee from “last years chainsaw accident”, I should have known not to place too much importance on his opinions . . . .
YoS
Empathy here
I feel your pain. Working with my hands or playing my horn is a Zen thing for me. I tend to become what I am doing and distractions from wife or her kids throw me off. I just have to stop until I get them out of my face. Then it takes a moment (or several) to refocus.
Saw training? You mean chaps,
steel toes, safety glasses,and helmet? Hah! REAL MEN don’t use those thangs! We would rather limp than look like a Martian.
OJT Training - I have worn out at least 5 chain saws and cut dozens of trees. ALL without my wife yakking at me. Damn, this toe hurts. Going paddling this afternoon.