One homesteading tool that I would have a hard time doing without is a good chainsaw.

That's why finding a solid backup to our trusty Stihl 039 has been on my to do list for years now. The 039 has been an outstanding saw, but when we got it I didn't know much about the finer elements of operating one of these machines and in retrospect wished I had chosen a slightly lighter model for 80 percent of the cutting we do around here.

Now the plan is to shift the 039 to backup status with today's arrival of the new and sexy MS 211. Luck would have it that while supplies last you can buy a 6 pack of Stihl synthetic 2 cycle mixing oil and double the warranty from 1 to 2 years. The synthetic seems to be just a bit higher in price and the word on the playground is that the extra performance is worth the money.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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