Miscalculated

Song of the day: “Bruises” by Chairlift. Such a cute little song. Regretfully I’ve got a throat thing going at the moment, so my voice is too husky to hit all the high notes. *sigh*

So yeah busy, and late. So what else is new, right? Nothing new about that, I know. But I swear, I will take the time, one of these days, to do a proper blog again, but right now, it just isn’t possible. I’m going to have to hurry again. Like the day before yesterday, tomorrow is a work day for me, and, well I better get to telling about the last work day.

We were right on time getting up and checking up on everything we had already loaded in the car the night before. Everything was in place (we forgot three items, or so we discovered once we arrived on site *snort*) and after feeding the dogs, and ourselves (had to take our time because neither caregiver or grandpa were at home) we headed out on the road and went to work.

Took Knight II along, of course, and he behaved admirably all day. Didn't bark, kept an eye on me without getting in the way, and at some point found the shade to save himself from getting overheated. Silly big lug.

Didn’t dawdle much. Just opened the house up, turned on the water and electricity, and while big brother started checking the fence, I took my tools and slogged up the mountain. Boy, is that a steep incline. Our drive sweep has nothing on it, I swear. I kept my eyes on the ground (meaning about hip height) from fear of toppling backwards and had to change course several times to prevent a collision with a thorny bush or a tree. Hah.

I pondered going with an illusion (like starting below to make myself belief that progress was faster) but then decided to go with realism and started at the top to then work my way down one row at a time. Even timed myself in the beginning, so I could make a rough calculation as to the timing (I already started to suspect that I’d bitten more off than I could chew, by then, btw) and discovered that a small tree takes about five minutes, a mid-sized tree then to fifteen, and a big one fifteen to twenty. Managed to trim an average of five per hour, and got two and a half of those done before two in the afternoon. Didn’t go bad, all in all. Had a break after two, then slogged back up (I certainly got my exercise yesterday, yeah) SIX times during the day. Hah.

The olive trees, on the overall were looking good, despite the few measly ones on the edges that had suffered some heat damage. The almond trees, on the other hand were looking pretty miserable. Poor things. Lotsa dead branches (tough as heck, by the way, definitely pulled my shoulder again trying to go through a branch that was just a little too tough) and a poor crown of leafs. Didn’t dare to do more than trim them of some dead ends. I don’t think it would be smart cutting them up with the heat of summer just around the corner. They might start “bleeding”.

The neighbors arrived while we were busy…well, I was up there (my ankles were not appreciative of the steep rocky incline, hah), and big brother was digging, while also trimming several times.
I did start getting tired around four, meaning I wasn’t paying enough attention when I cut through a dead branch where a small nest of birds had made its home. Caught the darn thing just barely in time, when, a second to late, I noticed that there were young chicks in there. They kept incredibly still in their nest, and I could hear their mum chirp in protest just a few yards away, as I called down to big brother for some help. Luckily I was wearing gloves, and the nest held on the branch, so in the end we managed to hang it back in place, hurried up with the tree and then left the youngsters to their mum.

But anyway, what with big brother needing to finish some stuff on the fence, he managed only ten or twelve trees, while I did seventy to eighty during the course of the, we didn’t manage to succeed with the task. Another trip is warranted (about 30 more trees to go) for more trimming and the clean up, which should be a doozy what with the ground over there littered with branches and leaves.
I’ve gotta admit that I’m curious as to how those trimmed trees are going to look a little time from now. The first ones that I did the other day are looking particularly healthy and green. Some, as planned have the wonderful crooked shapes of Bonsai trees, so, yay! I love those. But what with the dead stuff I had to take out some of them yesterday, some are looking downright mutilated. *sigh*

We admitted defeat around seven and headed home. Didn’t manage much that evening, first of all because we had to unload, eat, catch up on messages, and then…well, let’s just say that I was more than happy to call it a day. The stupid shoulder was killing me.

Which brings us to today. It would have been nice to go back to work today, but tenant needed to have the Opel to go to the dentist (she got her new teeth, yay), grandpa’s moped gave the spirit again so big brother had to drive him to the garage for repairs, and mom and little sister needed to go out as well, meaning that we were without a car until the afternoon arrived. Grrr. Then the plan was to go tomorrow, which would be difficult, considering the fact that the cars need to be loaded up for the markets…Sunday was out anyway, and then about an hour after having decided to go on Monday, we remembered that the Opel has to go in for repairs prior to MOT. Aaaargh. In the end we decided to get up early tomorrow, and head out anyway. The weather should be relatively cool, so if we’re lucky we manage to get back in time for the sibs to load up. If not, they’re going to be seriously POed.
*sigh*

While big brother and grandpa were out to get the moped fixed, I was home alone, and spent my time working on restoring that small decorative classic car I’ve been working on for a bit now. Needed to mix four different kinds of paints to get the right color, but in the end it all worked out well. It’s looking rather splendid at the moment. I’ll take pictures.

That took several hours, and since the old bread for the bakery was not there, dog food was postponed until we managed to soak the kibble into edible bites. Poor dogs were starving by the time we got around to feeding them after noon.

Spent the majority of the afternoon in the yard. Harvested, watered, and generally seriously enjoyed myself down there. Seriously, I wouldn’t have minded staying in the yard all day. So relaxing. But of course I couldn’t. Had to cook supper. Tortellini with fresh tomato sauce, which we devoured in about ten minutes before we had to leave to pick up a donation in the city. Took way too long, meaning we didn’t get home until after nine, and had no time to do edits because let’s face it, today was blog time.

*sigh*