But instead of scissors, his hands were made of chainsaws.
Spring comes capriciously and haphazardly to New England. Keeping our old, drafty farmhouse warm requires supplemental wood heat often through May. It’s all hands on deck as the colder months approach with cutting, splitting and stacking wood. But our wood cache, procured in late fall, is usually sufficient to last until the warm weather fully takes hold.
So when I heard the whine of the chainsaw the other day, I was surprised and a bit curious but not overly worried. At least not right away. And then I saw it.
The carnage.
Not knowing whether to start crying or grab my shovel to whack someone, my eyes took in what my brain could not reconcile: what was once our apple tree; decapitated, limbs severed...amputated branches strewn EVERYWHERE. Granted, the tree was ancient and sickly, but it provided enough apples for sauce and pie for us and treats for the goats and pony. And in the midst of it all was my husband, chainsaw whirring, giddily looking around to see what he could annihilate next with the Blade of Destruction.
He managed to mutilate one of the maples, the apple tree and the pear tree before I could stop him. It was like Sherman’s March to the Sea (only with trees and a deafening cutting device). Woody demolition incarnate.
When I finally recovered from my shock enough to pull my boots on and bolt outside, the conversation went loosely like this:
ME: WHAT. THE @$#&*% . ARE YOU DOING?! (Being cooped up in The House of Testosterone, combined with the lack of interaction with polite society, has given me a bit of a potty mouth. I fear this may take years to correct)
HUBBY: Pruning the trees. They were overdue.
INSERT Blank, blinking stare here)
ME: With a CHAINSAW?!! Who the $&#@*% (see? I told you it was bad) prunes with a chainsaw? What about the limb saw and pruning shears?! You know they’re called PRUNING shears for a reason!
HUBBY> It will be fine. My dad was a plant pathologist. I know what I’m doing.
(INSERT Hard palm slap to forehead here)
ME: If fine means DEAD, you’re probably right. ( I was too shocked in the moment to remind him that although neither of my parents had PhDs in Plant Pathology, I was a Master Gardener and had worked both as a horticulturist and a garden designer at a renown nursery and knew a *little* more about plants than he did. And l’d bet the farm my father in law would have backed me up on that one)
Because I wasn’t at enough risk of my head exploding, one of my boys wandered over and commented.
KID: Wow! What did Dad do to the apple tree?
ME: (Holding my head in my hands , whispering, choking out) He “pruned” it.
KID: Why’d he do THAT? You should have stopped him. That tree definitely isn’t going to make it.
At this point, I could either have added two bodies to the tree count or walked away.
Providence was on my side. I stepped away. Hid in the pantry. Yelled. Muttered more bad words. Slammed stuff around. And in doing so found my way through the madness. There, hiding behind the pasta was a half consumed bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream I had forgotten about, a jar of goat milk caramel sauce and an eight ounce block of Callebaut chocolate untouched in a Tupperware container smartly labeled “Dried Lima Beans”
I’m still miffed about the tree. But every cloud does have a silver lining...even in quarantine. I sat on the floor, opened up the Bailey’s, pulled out my phone, and ordered a half dozen apple trees. And then headed over to the barn to remove the chain from the chainsaw.