Day One

"Yep. See this 'ere? This is my baby," His boyish face lights up as he pulls out an orange Husqvarna chainsaw, "It's the best. You got Echo. You got Sithl. But no one makes chainsaws like this 'ere Husqvarna. C'mon, feel its teeth."

I walk over and remove my soaking wet gloves and glide my pruned finger across one of the razor sharp teeth of the chainsaw. I look back at my supervisor, the man I've spent over six hours with clearing the trails of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the pouring rain, Aaron Sherrod. He's smiling. Waiting for my mutual enthusiastic approval. "Sharp," was all I could mutter from under my dripping hood.

"Hell yeah, its sharp. It can cut someone up good if you ain't careful." He brought the bar (the chainsawing end) up in front of his face and examined the little bits of silver blade poking out of the chain. His eyes shoot back at me, "You wanna see something really sweet?" I nodded. Aaron chuckles and walks out from under the tool barn we've been standing under. "Check this out." He pulls the starter cord and the chainsaw sputters to life. He pushed the start button and the chainsaw roared and my mind instantly jumped to a chainsaw weilding Christian Bale in "American Psycho." I saw his mouth move but I couldn't make out a word over the chainsaws engine.

His muscular marine build made the chainsaw look like a toy in his hands but his face eminated child-like amusement. This has been the most excited I've seen Aaron all day.

This is not to say Aaron is bitter and hates his job. In fact, Aaron loves being part of the Nation Park's maintaince department. He loves manual labor and working outside, He just hated the weather today, and I don't blame him. It was pouring when I arrived at the CVNP administration building at 8:00 am and it persisted throughout the entire day. It was a good thing that Aaron greeted me with a bright yellow rainsuit because by the end of the day (3 o'clock) our suits and faces were brown with mud.

We spent the entire day on trail in the pouring rain digging out drainages and destroying berns that allowed water to collect on trail and allow them to pour out into the drainages. Aaron said the best thing about rainy days is that allows you to see where water collects on the trail so we can see where to dig out drainages with maddocks and rakes. By the end of the day we were sopping wet and exhausted.

We felt accomplished.

Oh, and the chainsaws? we'll be using them to fell some dead and hazardous trees later on. I'm excited.