Eager Beavers

A friend of mine took me to check out some stuff being prepped for a yard sale and I came across these two eager beavers. Manufactured by McCulloch in the nineties, the Eager Beaver model #2014, is no longer in production. 

I got both of them for $30.00. When an old chainsaw won't start the first thing to check for is  a broken fuel line. The lines are made of clear plastic tubing that turns yellow and gets brittle with age. Both ran fine after I replaced fuel lines but one had a worn out sprocket and the other a couple of missing bolts. I was able to scavenge parts off one to repair the other.

Once I got the saw running I used it to clean up this winter's crop of fallen timbers. This year most of them are old Redbud trees. I estimate somewhere between 15 and twenty of them. 

I don't need anymore firewood and Redbud is not very useful for building anything solid so the project this spring is Wildlife Brush Piles. First you make a checkerboard structure with the largest of the timbers then build a crown for it out of the branches. This is the first of a total of four that I plan to build. They make great homes for small wildlife like rabbits, mice and voles who provide food for owls, hawks and coyotes.

I'll look forward to watching for tracks around these in next winter's snow. Meanwhile the trip hazards on the forest floor are getting all picked up which should encourage larger wildlife like deer and turkey to pass through more frequently.