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I came home unhappy from my first day of clearing brush.
"I think there's a couple of demons in those woods," I told Honey.
She waited for the explanation.
"They put two chainsaws out of operation. I was cutting with the Stihl Jimmy gave me and realized all the chain oil was pouring out. The cap was gone. I never did find it. I switched to the Shindaiwa and pretty soon the air filter cover was missing. I found it 20 feet away in the hayfield, and later that saw quit."
"And you blame demons."
"Not first-rate demons. Wood sprites. Nasty fairies. They're hacked off because I'm clearing their thicket. Everything seems harder than it ought to be."
I had already showed her my forearms, all scratched and bloody, like I tried to break up a cat fight. A thornbush hooked my nose and I was nursing a fat lip from a grapevine recoil.
The next day two more chainsaws broke down. (I have eight; I'll explain some other time.)
Variations of the superstition to knock on wood, in order to propitiate or confound the mischievous spirits who dwell therein, is found around the world. There must be something to it.
With my chainsaws I was doing a lot more than knocking.
I'm long retired and do what I please most days, so long as I keep my wife happy. (How old am I, you ask? Curiously, I just read in a book that I am almost exactly the same age as John Quincy Adams was when he was as old as I am right now.)
The forecast was for a full week of uncommonly dry, mild February weather (God bless global warming) and I was not going to let it slip by without undertaking a major outdoor project, the more exhausting, difficult and unnecessary, the better.
Clearing underbrush from the woods along our 1,500-foot driveway, which is also the eastern property line, has been on my to-do list since 1980. It had grown up and spread out as property lines are wont to do. Over the years I worked sporadically at clearing it. This last section will fulfill my wife's dream of having an unimpeded view of the adjacent hayfield as she zooms up our driveway.
It was a thicket, a demon's fortress of half-fallen crabapple trees, whose branches, living or dead, have a Velcro-like affinity for each other. Multiflora rose and bush honeysuckle invaded long ago, reinforced in recent years by unkillable autumn olive bushes. Wicked little hawthorn trees with their needle-sharp thorns, poison ivy vines as thick as your wrist, wild grapevine that lays tripwire roots just under the dead leaves, and even little prickly, persistent barberry complete the rogue's gallery of nature's thugs there, all in league with the fairies.
Multiflora rose is the worst, climbing high into the 60-foot cherry, oak and elm trees, while at ground level weaving a razor wire-like barrier to hook and rip clothing and skin with a million strong, recurved thorns.
The first day of my project I built a huge brush pile which was hard to start and too big a fire when it did burn. I changed tactics, building a small fire each morning and feeding it through the day as I cut, the deadwood burning hot to consume the green.
Each morning the bed of coals was hot enough to kindle the fire again. I moved the burn pile as I worked my way up the thicket.
As it happened, two grandsons, Lamppost Head and The 747, came to stay overnight on the fifth day. I did not ask them to help, but knew them as willing workers, and knew the powerful lure that and a blazing wood fire on a bright, cool day would be for the winter-weary boy . . . or man. They worked hard by my side three hours that day and the next, bringing the project within one day of completion.
It felt like the right time to teach the boys how to chainsaw, so I did. Ages 11 and 13 may seem young, but they justified my trust and did well. There are grown men I would not trust with a chainsaw.
We cut a small truckload of seasoned crabapple logs for our woodstove, and I let Lamppost Head drive the farm truck the short distance home, which was another first. He'll get the touch for the brakes next time, I'm sure.
Probably he was goosed by that last departing demon.