On Saturday, I tried out my new Stihl MS361 chainsaw (18"bar). I wanted to straighten a path through the woods to my pond and needed to clear out a couple dozen trees, most in the 4-6" range with a few Oak at about 8-12".

The saw is pretty hard starting. Anybody else have the same experience with Stihl? Don't know if I'm just not doing it right or what. Way too many pulls for my taste. (Yes, I did read the manual on proper procedure for the saw, but only after it didn't start on the first couple of pulls out of the case. LOL) Once it was running, though, it brought a smile to my face the way it cut through trees. That's probably mostly due to the new Stihl chain, but it never seemed to bog down at all. Big difference from my old saws. I had hesitated to spend the extra money for the 361 over the 310, but I figure it's an investment that I won't be sorry about in 10 yrs (unlike my 401K). [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

Funny thing happened though. I had been dropping the trees and bucking them exactly where I wanted (along the old open trail) so they wouldn't get hung up in the other treetops and it would be easy to clear the debris. When I came to the last one, the wind came up and caught it just as I completed the felling cut and pulled the saw out and it went the opposite way, hanging on the hinge, the pinched closed felling cut and the top branches of another tree. I looked up to realize my truck was parked about 50 ft away directly in the new line of fall. Uh,oh. Anyway, I ran over and moved the truck with a wary eye above. Rather than try and muscle it over in the right direction, I just nicked the hinge from the notch and dropped it. (Not my preferred way, as there's a lot of stored energy there). The top 15' or so landed where the truck was parked, so I probably would have just had a dented hood and potentially a cracked windshield (not to mention a bruised ego).

Just a reminder to not take anything for granted when felling trees. I plan every cut, looking above and around and make sure I've got good escape routes.

Then on Sunday, heard that my sister's friend's husband fell out of a tree while trimming it on Friday. He was conscious but paralyzed on the ground but died on the way to the hospital.