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.

I probably should have spent my day doing things other than what I did, but you can’t fix that now, can you? You can only blame past-you for mistakes like that. And that guy has no recollection of the problem and, seldom, any remorse anyhow. So there’s no use in that, whatsoever.

I didn’t even do, today, the things I need to do for tomorrow or this weekend until late this evening. It’s been one of those days. But, hey, past-you tells yourself when he is present-you, sometimes you deserve a day like this.

And we all know what those days are like. We all know, even as those days are unique to each of us, what that means.

Anyway, this is coming down tomorrow. The soon-to-be erstwhile pest control company is coming out to take care of this. Mostly because I don’t want to risk it, and we still have this company and it’s their fault, really.

If you read around online, the suggestions for dealing with great big nests like this are to attack in the early morning or evening, be sure of your escape route, and wear a lot of layers.

Oh, I thought up a whole plan for this, but the more I thought about it, “boiling soapy water and run like crazy” didn’t seem like much of a strategy. There’s always close air support, but to drop something on this nest is to also hit the house, so the pest control company gets one last chance to impress here, even as their efforts and attentive eye lead to this basketball-sized condo of 2,000+ stingers.

Speaking of up in the trees, we are coming to the end of the peach harvesting season here at Smith Orchard. This also means we are desperately trying to give more peaches away. I’ve eaten a lot. We’ve eaten some more. We froze still more. Joe the Elder’s wife has been over a couple of times to collect some for them. Then, because she is a delightfully sweet person, she makes us a cobbler. With our peaches. The ones we are trying to foist onto others.

This evening, I took some of the peaches which are turning over for them to share with the deer that live in the woods behind them. In addition to the deer sneaking over whenever they want and eating freely from the tree, they’re now getting about two baskets worth of locally harvested fruit.

Joe the Younger’s family will get some peaches tomorrow. We’ve packed up sacks full for other people as well.

I’ll still have about two baskets to deal with.

But, look, I’m actually picking them off the tree.

This, I maintain, is a positive step. I am not playing catch up, and just picking up the ripe one from the ground. I can be assertive. I took that photo, such as it is, thinking it was the last peach on the tree.

It was not.

There are still quite a few more to go. Peaches can be quite overwhelming.

So you really need to stop by. (They are quite tasty.)

I’m taking a day off the site tomorrow. All will be explained Monday. See you then, and have a great weekend.

A friend came over for a visit today. While she was distracted, I put two bags of peaches in her car. A basket’s worth of peaches, right there in the front seat. So this status update isn’t exactly accurate.

We only have five baskets of peaches in the kitchen right now. And I had a giant smoothie. We’ll still have a week or more of peaches to bring in. And a lot of these have to be given away. So, again, come and get some peaches.

By the weekend, we will be hurling them at the neighbors.

Elsewhere, we’re getting rain from the former hurricane in the Gulf. The temperatures have dipped a bit, into the 70s, and it’s been a good day to stay inside and catch up on things.

There are many things on which I am behind. But I am now trimming things off the To Do list, and deleting emails from the inbox. I’m calling it productive.

ANd now I have to go get some more peaches off the ground.

This is my third try at this. They’ve all lead me around the block and back to this point, with a single conclusion.

I’ve got nothing today.

Zip. Nada.

Zero. Zilch.

Try back again tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll certainly have something.