Renegade 1, Chainsaw 0

Well, if I hadn't already been an amputee, I might have been a statistic this fine Easter weekend while doing lawn work.

After several trips around both my and the adjacent neighborhoods on my bike for both pleasure and errands, then changing out the wind turbine on my sister-in-laws house, I proceeded to undertake some much overdue lawn work. About three and a half hours into the work, I decided to shorten an old cedar tree stump to a safe level for a lawnmower to pass over it. I have used a chainsaw since I was a teenager, without so much as even a scratch. However, today was different.

Sitting on the ground and bracing as I normally would, the chainsaw kicked back on me (it caught on a knot). Being that my right ankle (pros leg) doesn't allow for my foot to be flat on the ground, the edge of my workboot sole slid forward when I pushed off in response to the kickback. That put my leg in the path of the bar and chain.

Needless to say, the sound of the saw attempting to bite into my pros wasn't a sound I would like to hear again (but it was better than if it had been the other leg!). Once my heartbeat returned to an almost normal rate, I checked the chain and decided I would need to spent some serious sharpening time before attempting any more work on the stump (cedar tree stump that is).

While there aren't a bunch of perks to being an amputee, having a 'steel toed boot' that reaches up to my knee is definitely one of them!

Note: "Renegade" is Freedom Innovations product name for my foot
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