In the following photograph, Brent the Mushroom Hunter is carrying a chainsaw. Attached to his backpack is a hardhat and a pair of earmuffs, both examples of reasonable chainsaw co-cargo. Poking out of the backpack, however, are, according to my count, six small sticks. The photograph, therefore, is a mystery and, thus, a riddle.
Anyone want to try to solve it?
Either that or kindling!
1. He was trying to save what's left of some trees from those damn tent caterpillars, the plan being to lop off the destroyed branches and burn the little bastards. I'd think this is more likely than
2. He needed to engineer a controlled burn of some underbrush. I'd think this is unlikely though, because I'd at least want a shovel as well. I suppose the photographer could have been carrying a shovel though, making this more likely than:
3. A tree needed to be cut down, but there were animals living in or under it. So said animals needed to be smoked out so the tree could be cut down safely. The chainsaw seems too small to cut down a very big tree, but given the information at hand this seems slightly more likely than the last guess (which I don't think is realistic at all but would be very cool!)
d. He was planning to build a canoe, old school indian-style. Though they really only used fire for everything before the iron tomahawk came around, so the chainsaw's presence is at odds with that.
There are a couple species of 'shroom that grow on burnt wood. Not sure if they are edible or not but I'd guess that he was trying to get some started?
