At some point, probably over the weekend while we were gone, we had a tree branch fall from one of the stately old trees on the north side of the property. We noticed it Tuesday. Today I did something about it. This is two-and-a-half sweaty hours distilled into a few words and photos.
It was much worse than this photograph, which I shot from the hip. Mostly because I was about a third or the way done with it at this point.
I was texting with someone and I received a good old-fashioned expression about how things were going for them, which made me want to come up with my own expression. So I was standing there thinking, I’m a lumberjack without a saw … which was both creative, and accurate.
But also inaccurate. I was cutting away the branches from the limbs, only I was using a pruning saw. It’s great for dispatching smaller bits, but becomes physical, quickly, with larger lumber. And as hour two turned into hour three, it became physical. Here’s a part of what I’d cut away, again, about a third of the way through the effort.
Not pictured is the stack of heavier sticks, sitting just behind that pile, that’ll make their way to the fire pit this fall. Also not pictured are my scraped up fingers and bloody knee.
And I still have to figure out something to do with the six-foot-tall pile of sticks and leaves. There’s only so much kindling one needs.
And then there’s the actual limb itself. But that’ll wait until another day, giant thing that it is, exhausted as I was.
Part of my repair was a nice shower and the last fresh-from-the-tree peach smoothie of the summer.
That’s right, when I want another one, I’ll have to go to the freezer and pull up some peaches I’d grabbed earlier this year. Or some of the peaches I grabbed last year.
I was too tired to ride my bike, and I can’t swim with my ear yet. Maybe Tuesday. Maybe Wednesday. So I just sat and looked at the water this afternoon.
And contemplated chainsaws.
Now, it’s coming into the evening. More on that tomorrow.
