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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Seven Minutes in Rockland

I have to get rolling by 11 am or so - seven minutes from now - to get ready for a dental appointment at 12: 30.  A normal human being wouldn't need ninety minutes to get to an appointment only fifteen minutes away, but I'm very slow at these things and I've been conditioning myself to add more lead time to appointments, lest I now always be 5-10 minutes late.  Which is the norm.

First nice day since the weekend, so today became a towel-washing day.  You might think I waited because our dryer is broken.  You'd be mostly wrong - we've predominantly used the clothesline during the summer for most of our married life, and I normally wait for a nice day to do laundry anyway.  No doubt, the string of non-drying weather might have made me reconsider if the dryer were an option, but, frankly, those clothesline towels dry fast and are the absolute in water-absorption when used.

The big thing that I need to do to get the backyard fully functional is to strip back all of the branches overhanging the yard.  I went up last summer with one of those extended cutters and was able to get most of the lower branches - particularly the ones over the roof.  But the device is a huge pain in the ass and not remotely designed for use one-handed on a ladder while leaning back to the right at a weird angle.  So a couple of the main culprits hung tantalizingly out of reach, and now they're too thick to get at with anything other than a saw.

Trees along the rear property line grow fast.  I've heard it's because there's an underground stream running there, but whatever the case, saplings left alone for even a season are already full-on trees and difficult to deal with.  Things that had been mere twigs last year now were over twenty feet tall, casting major shade. I spent a couple of hours over the last couple of weeks axing down all of the smaller trees, and they now rest in my driveway, awaiting sectioning and a trip to the landfill.

I had planned to chainsaw them up, and even reserved a rental, but thought better of it.  A chainsaw is not something you use for the first time without any instruction or supervision.  So even thought it's going to take me about ten times as long, I'm going to get rid of them the old-fashioned way: glaring at them and wishing them into the cornfield.

Nope.  Guess it's the handsaw and sore elbows.  Tomorrow.

For the record, the above took about 20 minutes.  Off to the shower, now.

D.

1 comment:

The Masked Rye said...

I had to cut down a couple of trees that fell in the yard. I managed to fix the chainsaw all by myself... then I thought perhaps if I fixed it, it might not be all that fixed. I made the smart decision and went to the store that does my lawnmower maintenance and had them take a look at it. I felt much more secure after they looked it over. Chainsaws are fun to use, make you feel manly, but y'know, should be handled with care...