After the snow day, the yard looked great. After all, every deficient plant and square of the yard was covered under a foot of snow. Who would think that a week later we would still be looking at it? Moreover, we received an inch and a half of fresh over the weekend.

The snow left at least one large branch on (seemingly) each structure on the property: the garage, the house, the adobe shed. And it left two in the driveway, one leaning on the garage, and three in the "courtyard" between the casita and the studio. Having been denied on account of snow from my customary works in the yard, I became frustrated enough to get out the chainsaw and begin cutting up the larger branches. I then fired up the chipper and began to chip.

Once into the chore, the chipper ran out of gas. Having none in the garage, I fired up Iris to take over to the gas station to get some. Iris got somewhat stuck in the snow, and so I had to shovel out from under its wheels a few times. But I got to the gas station in her eventually.

The process of chipping the wood was finally interrupted by the chipper plugging up. Seems as though wet sawdust is the consistency of mud and gums up the works. Once I cleared the device of sawdust I put it away.

I then looked over at the Tingley Elm growing through the fence between us and our neighbor. I made a primary cut to guide the direction of the fall and then dropped the tree in our yard, cutting the tree into firewood and heaping the branches on the now-substantial brush pile. When the wood dries out, I will fire up the chipper once more and resume mulch-creation.