Sunday we pruned the black walnut tree in my yard. It was long overdue to be pruned, technically long overdue to be killed. It created shade where I did not want shade, it randomly threw walnuts at me, and worse than that it grew at such an alarming rate that I feared being ravaged by the branches with every windstorm. (ok so maybe ravaged is a bit strong, but allow me literary license here) I bought a tree pruner some years ago, giddy with anticipation of this day. It is basically a saw attached to a stick and a rope. You pull the rope the saw….saws. When my son pruned little trees around the yard it cut effortlessly. When my son in law used it to trim branches near his pool….effective and effortless. But of course when we tried to use it, nothing was effortless or effective. In fairness, the branch was much bigger than we should have been cutting with my little pruner. A chain saw would have been a better choice, but we had dug the pruner out of the shed and my husband was still game to give it a go. And if you know my husband, when he is primed and ready to go….you go….or it’s gone! And this applies to many aspects of our…..ok never mind! As the little pruner saw-teeth dug into the bark and then into the flesh of the tree I could almost hear it laughing at us, mocking our feeble attempt at such a large branch with such a small tool. I stood on the deck directing as my husband sawed from the ground. Not much progress. He ventured into the new shed with the old shit and came out with a ladder. He leaned the ladder on the side of the tree, climbed several rungs and began sawing with a hack saw. (which to me, is just a stickless pruner) Again, little to no progress. He climbed higher on the ladder as I remained vigilant at my post on the deck, ready to declare when the branch was ready to fall. I felt that leaning the ladder on the very tree you are hacking at is a lot like the dentist asking you to hold the spit tray while he yanks your tooth out. But my husband didn’t think that the fence would hold both him and the leaning ladder so the tree will just have to hold the spit tray.
With the humidity soaring the mosquitoes began devouring my arms and legs even as I stood inches away from a citronella plant. How they didn’t just drown in my sweat is beyond me. My husband sawed, rested, sawed and sawed some more. I watched, sweated and swatted. For two hours we (ha) worked on the tree until I came up with a great idea. Gravity! If I could get a rope around the branch of the tree and tug on it as he sawed, gravity would help pull the branch away from its trunk. (See why he married me?) I looked everywhere for a rope and the best I could find was bakery string, purple wool and lots of colorful loops. (The ones you used to make pot holders with when you were in camp) I went back out to a resting husband with the bad news. He said to use the hose. After flinging the hose and not even coming close to getting it around the branch, hitting myself in the face twice with the nozzle I thought it best we moved onto plan B. I found a stick that helped me pull the branch low enough so that I was able to hang on it. I held on and hoped that when the branch snapped it didn’t come down splattering my over-taxed brains all over the backyard. The walnut tree would have loved that!
I hung, he sawed and the branch finally seemed to give way. I could hear the snapping of the walnut wood which gave me a sick pleasure that I am sure I should check out with a therapist. The branch began a slow decent. I announced from my perch that it was indeed on its way down and warned my husband to come down off the ladder in case it doubled back. Of course my husband was not only off the ladder already, but half way down the driveway. I’m here hanging on the damn branch and he is bracing for an avalanche. My euphoria was short lived. The huge branch and its many branch-lets (?) fell straight into the lilac bush that had grown into a lilac tree. And just like that we were at a standstill. The tree was winning. I saw it smile. The bark curled up into a grin, I am sure. Or maybe I was just delirious from the 10,000 mosquito bites I had welting up. So the branch, now not quite hacked off, not quite attached was laying across my yard, over my deck and imbedded into the lilac bush tree. My husband, not quite exhausted, not quite so primed and ready anymore was laying in a beach chair pondering our next move. Me, I was just scratching and cursing.
I am a giver-upper. I know when I am beaten. I know how to throw in the towel. If it had been up to me I would have called our ridiculously overpriced gardener and paid to have the tree removed in the first place. But now it was principle. A friggin’ tree was beating me. Us. Two against one and we were still losing. My husband finally decided to get out of the beach chair and come upstairs to the deck where I hung precariously from the branch just moments earlier and help me get the branch out of the bush. He pulled and I pulled and yes, I think the tree pulled back. But in the long run that branch that housed rodent squirrels and gave shelter to pigeon coop escapees….went down. Feeling very vindicated (and sweaty and itchy) I opted to leave the branch sprawled across the back yard allowing the rest of the tree to suffer the indignation of its loss. Instead, as my husband cut the branch into manageable pieces, I came in to take a shower and maybe call a therapist.
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