What have done towards your prep?

[Mortblanc]

Sounds like you are going to spend half a hundred pounds on safety gear to use a 5 pound hand saw to topple a sprout.

And remember, safety gear does not prevent accidents, safe use of the saw prevents accidents.

While I do not heat with wood I do keep a chain saw as part of my emergency gear for clearing storm damage.

It gets used once or twice a year for pruning and gardening work too.

My long term preps include a stand of trees in the corner of the lot that would keep me warm for a year or so and I would need the chain saw to deal with that if worst came to worst .

One of the first things I learned when I moved onto my first homestead was that I could not keep my family alive using a bow saw. There were not enough hours in the day to keep up with the demand.

Now I am too old and broken down to attempt to supply wood for fuel using a hand tools, or even to use them for occasional clearing of debris.

Anyone that tells you hard work never hurt anyone has never done any! I had my first heart attack while splitting firewood with hand tools.

If you have only the occasional trimming to do look into one of the new lightweight electric chain saws. I have a Remington that is a real jewel. Cost me about 50 pounds your money. Probably about the same as you intend to spend on safety gear.

I have used it for several years and it has done more than its share of work. I took down three trees from the front garden that were 100 year olds and rotting from the inside.

One of the neighbors took 6-8 full sized pickup truck loads of wood from that cutting. That electric saw did a fine job and even though I expected it to burn up within minutes it went through all that green wood and has blocked out several other large trees that were storm damage.

I have a small genset I can run it from if the power is down. The genset also doubles as power reserve for the house during crisis so it is not job specific.