It was in February this year that I picked up a small electric chainsaw. It would be disingenuous to say that I’ve been using it for six months — I don’t have that amount of wood to saw up — but I’ve owned it for that time, it still works well and it continues to prove its worth.

It meant I got through all the logs I picked up in February very quickly. Many were larger than I’ve processed before and, if I was still on the handsaw, I’d have bulging muscles and probably still a good number of that batch to get through. I also used it to work with others to take down a medium sized tree at church, where half was clearly dead and the other half looked like it might be going that way.

This afternoon, I was out again, helping some friends prune a cherry tree that turned out to have a very generous interpretation of ‘dwarf’ and had grown beyond a height they now felt comfortable climbing up to. I took smaller branches out with loppers but the bigger ones, up to about 10-15cm in diameter, were easily removed with the chainsaw. Although the saw is small, that is an advantage, making it much easier to handle.

I doubt I’ve mastered chainsawing and I’ll probably revisit some of the safety videos before long to top up my knowledge. However, I know how to hold it safely, how to keep the oil topped and the chain sharpened and I think I’ll be glad of it many more times before I wear it out.