April 21, 2014

Spring is springing and more yard work beckons.

Crocus.

Sigh.

I almost gave myself a really nice shiner...black eye, that is.  As it is, I narrowly missed my eye with the shovel handle but managed to hit the orbital bone squarely.  The purples and reds of the new bruise matched my previously bruised and swollen lip quite nicely for a day or two.

That late, heavy April snow, weighed very heavy on a couple of small trees in the backyard forcing them to come up from the roots a bit and keel over, the weight of the snow bringing them top-heavy to the ground.  I mentioned it to Mom one morning when we were in the kitchen.  She said that none of those trees (and she motioned to the spot where the trees grew) were supposed to be there and that my brother was actually supposed to have dug them out.

Great project for a semi-warm afternoon, I thought.  It took a lot more time than I thought it would.  And by the end of my epic efforts, I was exhausted...

Mom had told me that they were Locust trees.  They were actually Sumac.  And...as it turned out, one of the trees (the one with a double trunk) was actually a "Burning Bush," that I mistook for a Locust which was actually a Sumac.

Anyway, I dug them ALL up that afternoon.  While digging, I was using the shovel as a pry bar to loosen the roots from under the firmly-packed dirt around them. It must have slipped out of my grip and the shovel shot back at me, hitting me in the eye.

Latest (and I hope...last) injury.

OUCH!

I just sort of bit my lip (not the bruised one) and went back to work.

At this point the circumstantial evidence might suggest that I am a bit clumsy, but that would be wrong.  

I've just had a short run of bad luck encounters with tools...and carts.

The root systems on those trees were incredible!

Truly incredible.

The diameter of the roots (measuring 3 to 4 or more inches) was almost the same size as the trunk of the tree itself, and they snaked (underground) on and on and on, for yards and yards!

I chopped at them and pulled at them and chopped some more.

I have never seen anything like it. 

The mistaken "Burning bush" roots.

When I had battled the last stump (which was buried the deepest and required the most concentrated efforts to dig and wrestle it from the ground) I had a pile of roots that very nearly equaled the pile of brush from all 4 trees: the "Burning Bush," and the 3 other trees thought to be Locust, but actually Sumac.

I dismantled the trees with a hand saw and cut their trunks into nice-sized wood and stacked it in the back yard. 

Locust...actually Sumac.

My brother-in-law turned up his nose at my offer of the slightly larger than kindling wood. 

"Can't burn Sumac." he said as he continued to scrunch his face. 

"Sumac? Mom said it was Locust." I replied.

"Sumac. No good for burning," he said dismissively and walked away.

I had actually discovered that I was only supposed to be removing 3 trees (the misidentified Sumac) and not the "Burning Bush."  (I later confirmed this with Mom.) The point at which I recognized my mistake was when I sawed through the double trunk to see that the wood was different than the previous three trunks. In recognizing that difference, I examined the bark on the final tree and confirmed it to be something else indeed.  I did not know what...at the time, as I still thought that I was cutting down Locust trees.

Luckily, Mom took it all in stride (as she is known to do) and said that the tree (or bush) had "never turned red" like it was supposed to anyway and that it was probably planted too close to the pine tree.

"Pine trees don't like anything to be too close to them," Mom explained, sort of the "invisible bubble" or "personal space" theory for trees.

Collection of other post-snowstorm debris.

If ONLY I had known...

Easter was terrific even though rain moved in to spoil our master plan of getting Mom's yard work all done.

My sister, Laura, and I had come up with the idea simultaneously. 

She had explained that "all the kids" had gotten together in the past (last year on Mother's Day) to help Mom (their Grandma) with her lawn. I thought it would be great if we could all get together for the task on Sunday before Easter brunch, when we would be gathering anyway.

Laura and her husband Gilbert, their four children and their children along with Harry and I gathered with rakes, shovels, carts and wagons to rake the leaves, pick up the sticks, thatch and seed the lawn.

We didn't get very far.

Just the front lawn on the other side of the fence, near the road, was raked, and the leaves collected before it started to rain too hard to continue and we had to "call it," as my sister said. "Before everyone ends up with a cold."

It was a nice surprise for Mom, even though it didn't exactly go as planned.

Luckily, the morning weather was conducive to Easter basket and egg hunting. 

Harry had a blast. 

The hunt.

Every single time he found a brightly-colored plastic egg, he said very excitedly, " An Easter egg...I wonder what's inside?" 

EVERY time.

There were at least 25 eggs hidden around the yard.

He would stop, crack open the egg, discover its contents, announce them to Grandma and to me.

"Golden money!

Or...

"Balloons!" 

Or...

"Green grass!" (The fake Easter grass stuffed inside the egg to hold the "golden money" in place.)

Then he would move on to the next egg, "An Easter egg...I wonder what's inside?"

Hilarious.

He had so much fun hunting for eggs that we have a plan to disperse them into the yard again tonight and have another hunt.

Harry's idea.

He's actually had more fun with the plastic eggs and the Easter grass than with anything else.

Giant chick cookie.

Easter wishes on antique postcards.

There's no news from either prospective employer. 

Things can move rather slowly in this process.

Much more slowly than I would like.