…So God made a Jeep.

I knew from the moment I was vertical this morning it was going to be a beautiful day.

Near the end of December and/or the beginning of January is traditionally when we’ll get some truly cold weather dumped on us, though it can happen any time. It’s not real common to have such a pretty couple of days right after Christmas. But I’ll take it – and I didn’t want to take it in my traditional winter way of sitting around reading a book and being bored to tears.

I spent the morning futzing around doing chores…

…mostly hauling woodstove and burn barrel ashes to the ashpit, and generally cleaning up. I wanted to do something substantial outdoors this afternoon but nothing useful came to mind – I could go shooting, but you know. Ammo supplies are still present, but finite. Then I got to remembering…

A big flood in 2017 re-sculpted part of the wash to where what used to be a steep bank became a short cliff…

…which for a year or two cut off the usual path between Ian’s and Landlady’s places. But that was also the cattle’s usual path, and between them and erosion there was soon a way up the bank again.

I was walking on that path a couple of days ago and noticed that a juniper had gradually started to intrude on the path and really needed to be trimmed.

So this afternoon I decided to do that.

I tried cutting through the base of the branch with my cordless recip saw, but that was more than Mssrs. Black & Decker had in mind for that particular saw…

…so I came back with this big bucksaw Ian bought at some flea market or something many years ago, which mostly just hangs from a hook in my powershed. For a change this was exactly what the job needed and I got the branch apart quickly.

There was still the question of how I was going to get the branch down the path and up the wash and out of the way, though.

In the evolution of my Jeep kit, which contains basic tools, food & water, pads and a blanket, the tire inflator and I forget what all else, there are no less than three ways for the Jeep to tow things: A big tow strap, a lovely big roll of 1/2″ nylon rope, and this…

Just a stout cord with a couple of fancy knots my daughter made for me several years ago, which turned out to be ever so handy for pulling snags and dead juniper for conversion to firewood and other purposes. It gets the most use of the three and never seems to wear out.

With that, I could easily jerk the branch down the path…

And tow it up the wash till it was out of anybody’s way. In time it’ll dry out and I might cut it up for other uses. Or not – it’s not the only one.