You know that old saw about a room full of monkeys with typewriters producing the next Great American Novel? Leave me snapping away with a digital camera for long enough and I’m bound to produce something like this:
(from southern Maine the weekend of July 24th, 2012, just after a torrential downpour)
Headed home straight from dinner into a giant deluge. Stopped at the Kennebunk rest area with storm clouds to the east and sunshine to the west just as the rain was petering out. Ran in for a quick diaper and pajama change for Brady and some coffee for me. Came out to this double beauty and lots of touristy gawkers. Lovely ending to a fantastic weekend with family and friends in Maine.
Me, that John Deere tractor and trailer to the right, a bow saw, a pruning saw, a pole saw, and 10 months. That’s what it took to clean up the consequences of last October’s snowpocalypse. The mound to the left of the tractor is the output of all that work, and the second photo is one of the more painful examples of how much damage was done, especially to our apple trees. Fortunately we have many of them, but as you can see this one lost 1/3 of its main trunk, and about the same amount of its upper foliage.
Susan tried to convince me to get a chainsaw after a couple of months of seeing how much work was involved, but I need my cardio and exercise, and derive a fair bit of satisfaction in this kind of work. I’m happy to more or less be finished though – everything’s cleared up aside from a few branches too high up for me to get at with the pole saw and too difficult to climb to, and a few that we hope will survive even if they don’t look like it.
In the first example of what’s sure to become an annual tradition, Brady gets a Spring haircut:
Dave's Place/Metamusing 