Timberrrrrrrr. Yikes!

Song of the day: “Coconut” Harry Nilsson. Had it before, but it is still an incredibly fun song.

Okay, today was a busy one, and considering it followed grocery shopping day (yeah, yeah, I know: aaargh!) I’m going to skip yesterday and start right with today. Besides nothing of interest happened anyway. In fact we did the chore in little over five hours so that was good.

Soooooo, today: Yay! I mean it. Seriously. The sun was out all day, the temperatures were in the high seventies, low eighties and we made the best possible use of the day.
You see, there is this big mimosa tree growing over the house, and we have been planning to do some serious trimming for the past few weeks. Today was perfect for it.

First off, thought, there was laundry, of course. I’m turning overtime for it, since I want it all gone before the rains start again (according to the weather channel it will be tomorrow, or the day after) and just half an hour ago I pushed in the last batch. Yay.

Afterwards I tackled the glass partitions in the house for a bit. The dirty windows have been driving me bonkers for quite a bit, so last week I finally said, enough, and have been cleaning the smooth surfaces every morning for fifteen minutes or so. The result is rather pleasant, I must admit. There really is nothing more pleasant than walking in the house and seeing gleaming black patches where the windows are…perfect spot to see King’s “It” in. Hah.

But anyways. I had a quick breakfast while big brother went out with grandpa to pick up the moped. Apparently the darn thing panged somewhere along the way, so grandpa had been forced to walk home. Turns out something is wrong with the cooling liquid tank, and we don’t have a clue as to what caused it.

Be that as it may, within no time at all we were ready to start on the task of trimming the mimosa. Both big brother and I climbed onto the roof, and while he continued to climb up into the tree itself, I would be below catching the branches and trunks. That went just splendidly too, until the biggest one came down suddenly and basically landed on top of me. Yikes. Luckily my reflexes are a lot better than they used to be, and I dropped down into a tight ball as the trunk’s V came right at me.

I remember taking one step back, covering my head with my arms and then it was on top of me. I was right between the V, so no real harm was done. I’ve got some cuts and bruises on my back and sides, and that’s it. Heck, it didn’t even stop me from continuing on.
Big brother was worried for a bit, though, since I disappeared under the foliage, he asked me if everything was okay (from within the tree where he perched with the chainsaw) four times before I could answer him. Seriously, how come you’re always unable to answer someone while taking inward stock of the damage?

Soon we were back and sawing and hacking, and in the end the big offensive part of the tree that was a hazard was hauled away. Next came the fun part. Cleanup! Yep. I think that took longer than the whole operation on the tree. There was about twenty square meters of roof tiling to clean, and more than eight full wheelbarrows of composting leaves, branches and whatnot to haul away.

The fun part of it, is that I had to use this child’s toy rake thing to drag the stuff from between the roof tiles. It was pretty tough too, considering there were roots, bugs and such all over the place. Still, it was kinda nice working on the roof in the full sunshine. Heck, I might actually end up with a winter tan. Hah.
Didn’t finish the task (carting it all down the mountain took some extra time) until dusk, but that was okay. The dogs had a blast attacking the downpour of debris and then running up and down with me, so, like I said, a successful day.

When we were finally done, I was sore, itchy, sweaty and more than a little achy. I need a shower, food and a chair, and not necessarily in that order. Hah.

Well, I’ve got more edits to do, of course. When don’t I need to do edits? And considering yesterday’s edit went atrociously, I really should try to get some done today…after a nap.
I’m outta here.