Lumberjack of All Trades

Part of clearing the new I Tell You What estate has involved two projects that I highly recommend to any red-blooded 'merican male. We are talking serious exercise of dominion. One is to cut down a mighty tree, definitely big enough to wreak havoc (see below). The other is to harken back to days of wooden axe handles and iron... axe heads, I guess. Yes, chopping down somewhat smaller trees with axes. It is a good kind of feeling to hack away at the base until you know one final swing is about to fell the tree. I have stolen a sports phrase to describe this: the walk-off swing. Just like a baseball player knows when his swing has driven in the winning run late in a game, you know that one more swing of the axe will topple the tree, bringing a satisfying groan as the tree leans, then a thump as it lands on the ground. Great times, and my hands are getting to where they've stopped complaining about blisters and just deal with it. Of course, even on axe days I am using a chainsaw for clean-up because, well, I do have other things to do and I AM a big fan of 2-cycle mo-chines.

The first tree we dropped was really just a warm-up, nothing nearby to damage

And there she goes

And now for the more precarious poplar; note the nearby garden fence

Yours truly sawing away; note the lean as things get exciting

The apple tree calls for a fair catch, but is going to take a hit either way

So... if neither end of the tree is on the ground, have we truly cut it down? Note the steep angle on the back-cut. My bad.

The intrepid crew of engineering lumberjacks who risked life & limb to help out, I Tell You What. The orange hardhat (yup, from Home Depot) is just an example of how dorks have fun. Hard workers with solid backs and shoulders all.

Lessons learned: keep your axe and chainsaw sharp, Sharp, SHARP. Keep your backcuts with the chainsaw flat, even if your experienced friends advise otherwise. Keep family members clear of the area (let's just say the apple tree was not our target)

Shady 3/2 Acres

It was a nice day to read books in the shade.

Packaged By Quantity, Not Volume

Last summer we moved into our new house. The first project I took on was cleaning and sealing the deck on the east side of the house. For that work I needed (not needed, strictly speaking, but found useful) a power washer. It's a pretty low pressure, cheaply made electric unit, which meets my needs. Until, that is, this Spring, when I pulled the trigger halfway through cleaning windows and the outlet hose blew clean off the front of the washer. The outlet T fitting, looking like it was made of cast iron, had blown completely in two pieces right across one of the threaded sections. A quick call to the Lowe's Task Force power washer hotline arranged for a replacement part to be shipped to me (being within the warranty period) free of charge. Excellent. Six weeks later, a second phone call to follow up and ask why I had not received the part resulted in the realization on the vendor's part that the replacement fitting had never been shipped. Four days after that...

...the box in the picture above had arrived. That box contained a replacement fitting, shown at the top of the box, and a bunch of crumpled brown paper. The picture also includes a can of Campbell's soup, which I included to provide scale. That's right, the vendor shipped the part in a box that could have held several hundred of those fittings. What could they possibly have been thinking at whatever warehouse they shipped that thing from? Consumer Reports often publishes pictures of gross waste in packaging, maybe I'll send this one in as a candidate.

Stay Classy, Shipyard

The other night, I pitched for a team some of my co-workers have put together in my employer's most competitive softball division. My co-workers are seriously talented, my hitting power is declining sharply with age and my legs are slowing. My contributions are definitely only part-time this year, there is a lot else going on right now that's more important than softball. That's not the point, though. The game went fine enough, we were generally outclassed by a team that, from top to bottom on the roster, featured guys bigger than me, which is a first. That's not the point either.

They were sponsored by a strip club. This group of lunks decided to do there part in the further disintegration of Western Civilization, and probably get their league fees paid for them in the process. Even in this day and age, this was a bit of a surprise. This particular crew was exclusively guys from the shipyard, and I am well aware that is a rough place. Nonetheless, didn't they feel any sort of moral conflict with wearing uniforms featuring a strip club's logo? After all, some of the guys have children, what is the message they want to send them?

While surprising, that a group of meat-heads might make this decision does not rock my concept of reality. What does rock my concept of reality, though, is that a major corporation, part of the military-industrial-congressional complex, functioning in an excruciatingly politically correct society, would allow a team in one of its athletic leagues to do this. I know less each day.

Serial Tiller

What a great weekend! After working a few small jobs in the wonderful Spring weather I to have some man-time, sweating in a shirtless toil as my skin slowly browns. Well, in the name of full disclosure it must be noted I'm redding, then browning. Full disclosure-plus mandates I note that laying down on a bench and lifting when reddened/browned is very uncomfortable, to boot.

But I digress... I found myself clinging desperately to a 100 pound, iron oxide coated monster augering its way through my garden. A kind friend loaned me a rototiller, all the better to engage in dominion over the wilderness that is (has been, really) my modest garden. The beast is about the same age I am, was clearly built before aluminum or stainless steel were commercially available, and was quite a handful to control. Knowing that, it was all the more remarkable that the machine, which I dubbed Tirpitz, started on the second pull and ran without fault for the whole morning. And that thing could chew up some dirt, I tell you what! The rototilling was preceded by extensive slashing, clipping, sawing, and digging to clear the lot, then burning all the debris along with extra piles of branches from the pear and apple trees (shown above with Sarah Joy).

This is all good news. Wifey has seedlings coming up (including about 1/2 dozen chestnut trees), the blueberry bushes are no longer choked out, and all the derelict trees that threaten structures or safety are down. And we have a tire swing up for Sweetness and Sarah Joy! Our property is slowly, painstakingly, taking shape. There will be work to do as long as we live in this blessed house, but it's starting to look less like a wildlife preserve and more like Eden. Or, at least our little slice of it.

Some-acious

We've all known somebody who is tenacious. Strong-willed, confident, well versed in their beliefs and ready for action. Willing to go the distance. Well, some are not like that. Some are, well, a little less persuasive and a little more persuadable. A little less dogged, and a little more lap-dog. I have coined a word for these types, the easily discouraged. What is less than tenacious?

Nineacious

Get it? Because nine is less than ten! Anybody at work who isn't willing to see a job through is tagged as nineacious. Of course, there is an antonym for the nineacious of the world.

Elevenacious

If you are elevenacious, you are, naturally, more than tenacious. You overflow with tenacity. You are a wolverine.

While we are talking about new words, I have come up with still another new word. It's really just a new term for a phrase I once heard elsewhere. Decorum prohibits me from getting too graphic, but it should suffice to explain that it describes talking too much about things one does not understand.

Moutharrhea

Aftermarket

When you have a helicopter, which is awesome, you still may wish to make it still more awesome. But, perhaps you had in mind the ability to fire air to air missiles and a serious radar, which the helicopter manufacturer assures you is not in the cards for the Chinook helicopter. Well, you say, if I cannot bolt missiles and radar to my massive helicopter, I shall strap on to something that can do it for me.