Corey's Daily Post June 7, 2026

In the ongoing "Battle of the Pines 2026," the pines have won this day.

They came close to winning the war.

One of the trees that came down naturally as a result of the droughts here in Colorado, brought a giant root ball up as it went down.

After weeks of dismembering dead trees, this stump and root ball are the last of the large pieces. From here, it'll be primarily taking down branches into smaller pieces, and sending sticks to the wood chipper to make mulch.

This big root ball isn't going to make it easy though. After taking down the trunk down as far as I could, I started removing the roots that jutted into the air in all directions. Without thinking, I started cutting a root that was about 5 inches across and sticking straight up in the air 6-7 feet.

The cut went easily, but the weight of the root came down on the bar of my chainsaw, instantly jamming the chain and forcing it out of its tracks and free of the bar. It was preventable, and I'm lucky it didn't go worse for me.

On the bright side... this summer I've learned how to sharpen my chain, adjust the tension, and soon, how to install a new chain. Glad to expand that skillset AND still have all of my original parts intact. (knocking on wood)

The background, like many I'm working on currently, was painted months ago. I recently retrieved a box of paintings, so this will be a recurring theme for the summer.

With all of that pink and red, black flamingo just made sense.