Yard Work

Okay so it's like this: my grandpa wants to spend the rest of his life mowing grass. My grandparents had a couple of wooded acres in the back of their house. and about 2 mouths ago my grandpa decided that he wanted it all cleared out and to have a huge, sparsely wooded back yard. All well and good. However when the guys they hired to clear it out where done there was still no way they where going to get a lawn mower back there, there where way too many sticks and rocks and stuff, not to mention many unsightly vines in the trees. So the long and the short of it is that we have spent several days this past week in McComb helping to remedy that problem. Which brings us to the latest Brillant Merisha story.

In the afore mentioned yard there is a rather scrawny tree. Apparently when a neighboring tree was cut down one of it's branches was caught in it, so now there is a sad looking tree with a dead branch dangling just above reach and it has been driving us nuts all week. This morning my grandparents where out and Mom, Robin and I started bright and early. Mom had spent a while trying to coax this branch down with a limb cutter, you know, the kind that extends about 15 feet or so. The problem was that she could not get quite high enough to get a grip on the branch. So, Robin and I, being the helpful daughters we are, decided to, um, "help" her. The place that see really needed to latch onto was about 12 feet out of reach. Being the most apt tree climber in the family, I (with Robin's help) proceeded up the tree and they handed the limb cutter up to me. I decided to cut the limb that was holding that annoying branch up.

I'm standing in the tree trying to operate the limb cutter, I get it in position, and pull the rope that is supposed to move the blade to cut the limb.

As you may know, I'm not the strongest person the the world, and add to that that I was trying to balance in a tree, I could not get that branch to cut for love for money. Not only that, but it had cut just enough that it would not come down. It was stuck. Well, than I have bright idea number two, namely, tie a cord to the cord that I was pulling and give it to those on the ground who will not have to worry about breaking their necks if they get a little off balence. The cord broke.

By this time we are on a time limit. My grandparents are on the way home, and we don't want to give them a heart attack at our rather dangerous antics in the tree, nor do we wish to actually admit that we got their brand new limb cutter stuck in the tree, 12 feet off the ground, and can't get it down. When they drove up I jumped out of the tree and we all pretended that there was not a red limb cutter hanging over our heads and came of to the house for lunch.

After lunch Robin and I decided to use a mallet to try to loosen it and get it down. The first attempt was unsuccessful. The sledge hammer we brought had a handle about 3 feet limb and weighed a ton. So now I'm in the tree, swinging a ten pound sledge hammer, trying to knock loose the tree cutter. I succeeded in hitting myself in the eye with the cumbersome handle. At this point I became mad, and was trying to figure out what I was going to tell the people at the emergency room if my eye was really injured. It was not however, so Robin went in search of something smaller and came back with a rubber mallet that did the job in about three seconds. I am happy to report that limb cutter is in the shed where it belongs, and I am still in one piece.

The limb that caused all the commotion in the first place, however, is still there. I guess you can't win them all.