I woke up on Sunday knowing that in spite of the frigid wind, I was going to cut some Osage Orange limbs for posts. While I was at it, I was going to install a post for one of Kate’s bird feeders … even though the ground now has several inches of frost.

My first task was to get the chainsaw running. The trusty Husqvarna fired up on full choke after about 10 pulls with the compression release open. I was pretty amazed, especially since the gas was left over from the last time I cut wood back in August. It took longer than usual for the saw to warm sufficiently enough to run at full throttle, but hey, it was in the teens, temperaturewise.

Once I knew the saw would work, I replaced the chain with a brand new one from Oregon. I will cover chain saw chain sharpening another time, but suffice it to say, I didn’t feel like dressing the teeth in my unheated shop. Next, I loaded the saw, a couple of dogs and a can of gas/oil mix into the Polaris Ranger 700 and headed off to look over some of the more overgrown Osage Orange trees on our place.

I didn’t cut any trees down completely, but I did trim large trunks and branches from several. I will use the posts for garden fencing, livestock fencing and for trellises and other yard/garden/vineyard structures. The beauty of Osage Orange is that it will outlast most other kinds of posts in this region … including lighter-weight, steel t-posts. The Osage Orange posts can be set with their bark on and need no treatment whatsoever to make them decay resistant. The wood is dense … the heartwood is yellow-orange.

Sawing in the winter is joy compared with sawing in the summer. With the sap drawn down into the roots, the trees cut more easily, and the tops are much easier to trim with the leaves out of the way. I didn’t haul all the posts back to the barn yet, but I did bring one in to use for Kate’s bird feeder. I used a couple of gallons of hot water to melt the frost enough to get the post-hole digger to penetrate the soil. That post, now planted about 30-inches in the ground, should last forever.

After planting the post, I trimmed the top level and attached the feeder with three deck screws.  Within minutes of mounting and filling the feeder with peanuts and sunflower seeds, our feathered friends began to flock in.  The delight on Kate’s face warmed any cold that had crept into my Carhartts … another good day in Kansas.

We’ve been fortunate to have a 2009 Polaris Ranger XP at the farm for the past few months. The machine has come in handy pulling the DR Field and Brush Mower and Polar and Agri-Fab trailers on various pasture maintenance and wood harvesting adventures. As a motivator, the Polaris Ranger XP is powerful, comfortable and more than able. But it is so much more than that.

The Polaris Ranger XP has become my favorite tool for fencing. The ample cargo bed handles 6-foot T-posts and all manner of step-in poly posts with ease. There’s plenty of room for buckets of tools, spools of wire and post drivers, and the machine makes an excellent anchor platform for pulling wire tight. What strikes me most about the 2009 Polaris Ranger XP is that it starts right up, every time, and is ready to go more or less instantly. No more manual choking and coaxing a cool engine to life, only to move 100 yards down the line. I credit the machine’s fuel-injected 700 cc engine and electronic management system for that.

With its bench seat, the Polaris Ranger XP has plenty of room for a helper and a couple of dogs. We have successfully un-spooled miles of wire with me tending the jenny and Kate at the wheel. The Polaris Ranger is much easier to fence with than a pickup truck or tractor. It is more nimble than either, has sufficient cargo capacity and is easier to get into and out of. When I was a youngster, ease of ingress and egress wasn’t much on my mind, but today, several decades later, it is a serious concern. The Polaris also offers a comfortable ride, and plenty of get up and go when you need to run a couple of miles back to the barn for another box of staples.

I am sure we have only begun to tap into the utility and fun that the Polaris XP utility vehicle can provide. Stay tuned for updates.