(written on the 30th)
First thing I did was head over to the tree to make sure it hadn’t fallen. I actually went by with my mom late because I heard a noise crash sometime after midnight or 1:00 or whenever it was, and she was curious and I wanted to see if the tree had come down, but it hadn’t, and nor had it by the time I woke up in the morning, though the fire had burned plenty of the tree base away.
Using the bean bag slingshot tool was somehow even harder today. Then bean bag got completely stuck twice, and I had to break it down, leaving the bean bag stuck up in the tree, and leaving me having to replace the bean bag with a rock.
But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get It to work and get a rope pulled around the top like I was hoping.
Instead, I went and yanked a massive chunk of the poison ivy off the tree, got a 20-ft extension ladder, climbed up the tree, and wrapped a rope around it about maybe 18 ft up.
Somehow, I never think to put on long sleeves and long pants when I’m working with poison ivy.
That will come back to bite me.
Again.
With the rope wrapped around the tree, and then hooked to the hitch of my work van and pulled taut, I went about cutting the tree just enough to be able to pull it the direction I wanted, so that it wouldn’t come smashing down on his trees.
I worked and worked and worked. Joe was there with me helping. I had it all set up ready to go To be just perfect.
But I waited 10 seconds too long.
Joe was yelling at me to stop cutting, but the chainsaw was so loud that I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and I didn’t realize that the tree was at the point where I needed to pull it over with the van.
I had just a tiny bit more that I was going to cut before I thought it was going to be ready to pull over, but the roots were rotten, and apparently, I was cutting the only section of the base left that was not rotten.
Without the aid of the van to pull it the direction I wanted it to go, down came the tree, smashing into Joe’s trees.
😞
It completely took out one of them, snapping it off about 9 ft off the ground, and it took out A main limb off of another. If that weren’t enough, when it pulled off that main limb, it stripped the bark down probably 8 ft.
I felt awful.
I still feel like crap about it.
😞
I used my van to yank the massive tree To the side of the road because it was completely blocking the road. Then I got my chainsaws and cut it up into four big sections.
Then my super expensive chainsaw decided to stop working. I swear. I hate chainsaws. Well, I hate gas chainsaws. I spent more time fixing them than I do being able to use them. My little Milwaukee battery chainsaw is absolutely fantastic charge the battery, put some bar oil in it, and you’re good to go.
It’s just that the little battery chainsaw isn’t reasonable to use on jobs this big. 😕
Fortunately, I at least was able to cut the main trunk into all its pieces.
Neighbor Dan helped me get the arborist saw working, so even though it’s just a small saw, that’s all I needed to finish cutting off the limbs from the top section.
I think I went over and helped Liz with stuff for a bit, and then Jim came back from work, and he brought the tractor over and hauled away the chunks of tree To the burn pile across from Stevie’s place.
Thanks, Jim.
I wish I had the perspective that Jim and Dan have. When things go sideways, they just roll with it, let It Go, and move on. I… don’t. I tend to stay frustrated and to dwell on it.
Case in point, Joe’s tree that I smashed when I couldn’t get the tree to follow the direction I wanted it to fall by pulling it the opposite way that it was leaning.
Crappy.
Though I personally don’t care very much about material things, I do care what people think of me far too much, so I’m worried that people are going to be angry with me or frustrated with me or not like me when I mess up, especially when my screw up affects them.
Anyway, I wish I were more like Dan and Jim in that regard.
After Jim moved The big sections of tree, I took him out to eat in Pea Ridge, breaking with the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and ordering an absolutely massive burrito.
I feel a little bad about that, as it goes against my personal values, but I’m just struggling so much that I don’t have much of any resilience anymore.
I’m a mess. 😕
I spent a good long time talking to Liz about things that are going on for her. It seems like all of us on the hill right now are going through some pretty challenging times. It’s good to spend time with family.
Another thing that was good was that one of Ramona’s two dogs was found– covered in ticks and looking pretty rough, but alive.
That’s huge for Ramona.
I’m glad I was wrong. I figured that with them being little dogs, neither would last the night with all the predators around, but At least one made it.
The pessimist side of me, or maybe realist, or whatever it is, thinks that finding only one doesn’t bode well for the other one being okay. I would expect them to be together, as they had wandered off together and were seen together after they had wandered off.
Still, fingers crossed. 🤞
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 