There was a very windy day just past. Outside the gate is filled with random newspaper trash that needs to be cleaned up. In the garden part of the magnolia tree was blown down. The tree had two distinct shoots and one was completely knocked over into Ray’s yard. Yesterday I choose to ignore the situation, but today I had to check it out. It was surprisingly large, it shouldn’t have been surprising considering it was fully half the tree. I stood there for a few minutes trying to decide if I could handle it. Gradually an approach formed itself in my mind.
I whacked off as many small branches as necessary to make the whole thing able to be dragged over the fence that separates the properties. Then I pulled, lifted and dragged it till the majority was in our yard. Then I took a hand saw and trimmed it all back to the major stump. It was a long process beginning with breaking the smallest shoots (some with the youngest buds) then working back towards the trunk finishing off the thicker branches with the saw.
After all was pruned and nothing was left but the trunch I got out the circular saw. Of course this is not the ideal tool for the job, but it was what was at hand. I had forgotten that the last time I had used this saw I was making a plunge cut on Jane’s desk when the saw recoiled on me and cut straight through its own cord. I guess I had finished the cuts I needed to make at the time because I had just wound the cable around the thing and put it back on where it belongs. So before I could continue I had to rewire the saw which quick and easy.
Then I was out there whacking up the trunk into 2 foot logs. It went very quickly, the whole process took less than two hours. I have to say I was not sure that I would be able to do the job on my own at all. But once I started it went quickly and without the usual snafus and changes of course most projects are prone to. In fact I pictured in my mind someone in a window of some nearby brownstone looking out at me sizing up the situation and saying to them self “He’ll never be able to do that on his own” and then being proven wrong when not only did I do the whole thing by myself but that it was a quick and painless job.
I can only be satisfied that I was watching myself from my own mind’s window.