Week 7 - Hedgeapple

The biggest highlight of this past week? We dropped a tree on our house. For those of you city slickers, dropping trees is slang for cutting them down. For those of you who are wondering how I manage to drop one on my own house - it's really easier than you think. Let me explain.

When we first looked at our house back in February, we were blown away by all of the tree cover around the place. Trees do great things for houses, such as decreasing heating bill, shading our grass so that it survived further through this summer's drought, bringing in lots of critters close to the house and generally beautifying the area. Unfortunately, having trees also means lots of leaves (why I don't need a gym membership in the fall), branches falling in storms (last week of June - perfect example), lots of spiders around the house (no idea why, but I hate it just the same), and lastly, risk of damage from falling trees. You see, as trees get older, they might not have grown down the straight path in their youth (how many of us do?), so the weight of all the mature branches continues to tilt them exactly where you don't want them to go, like a drunk tripping towards High St. This was the case of a Hedgeapple tree leaning over the garage when we moved in.

Betsy staring into the wind with her ears blown back.

All summer, I'd look out the back and say it needed to go, but I kept putting it off. Finally, on Friday night, after another beautiful (yet windy) walk on the dam with the dog, I convinced my wife to help me get the tree down before dinner. I wanted to spend the weekend dropping trees at risk to our new fence (coming soon) and figured I'd start with the tree on the property that made me the most nervous. If you aren't aware of Hedgeapple trees, they're really quite friendly. The wood is so dense that it causes chainsaws to spark and burns so hot you can't get close enough to enjoy. It is popular for fenceposts because it never rots or bows because it is so freaking strong. Oh, and did I mention the 2-inch thorns which are a guaranteed infection if poked by one? Lovely tree. Only good thing is that the fruit seems to scare off spiders in houses, even though spiders love to live in trees. It's the ultimate Halloween tree.


Everything was going fine through the first drop. The tree had grown in 2 halves, both of which has curved along the house and were leaning over the house. An additional concern was the power lines which ran to the house across the more logical falling path, so we used a rope to pull the trees in the opposite direction - towards a chain-link fence that we're pretty ambivalent about. First half down, and I am cutting through the second half, sparks flying, when the tree starts to go the wrong way. Mind you, we have cut a wedge to gently remind it where to go, but when I cut, it was so heavy on the one side that it pulled my wife off the rope pulley system she had set up and pinched my saw. Both of us were then frantically pulling on this rope to prevent it from falling on the house. The only thing we accomplished was reducing the momentum. It was getting dark, and we had dropped a tree on our garage.

The rest of the story is really pretty boring. I went up on the roof with the only other cutting tool I had, a Coleman camping hatchet, and cussed and chopped the ever-living $#!? out of the thing. I don't have a good relationship with the tree, given many previous encounters resulting in infections, etc., and I made sure the tree knew about it. A lot of hard work from the both of us and the tree was diced and off the house, with the chainsaw freed. It was only 8.30 pm. Thus began a weekend of heavy work and heavy caloric consumption resulting in 4 more trees down and diced. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have the rest done and the fence guy will have finally shown up. Once the wood is dried there will be one heck of a Halloween party at our place.

Only picture in the dark that I have to prove there really was a tree on our garage.

Firewood consuming the bulk of my weekend, I spent the rest of my time writing papers for classes this coming week. To be blunt though, with a second degree in the bag, I'm not spending a lot of time worrying about classes or grades anymore. Earlier in the week, my wife and I played some pretty comical tennis. Neither of us are especially good at the sport even though we're familiar with the concepts. I seemed to have perfected the lob, while she lays a good first serve. Other than that, we were shamefully terrible. Still, it's fun to get out and exercise, something we are trying to do more these days in an effort to lose weight (results still pending). This was the motivation for the walk Friday night over the dam as well. We saw a snake and lots of dog bags not cleaned up by their owners, and walked through a brisk wind which was putting up whitecaps on the reservoir.

My wife sent this to me, saying, "This is you". Everyone just has a different style of learning.

Close-up with camera-phone of baby snake on walk.

My birthday has officially come and passed now, with celebration on both sides of the family. Mine came over to the house Wednesday night to eat pizza and watch the Reds. We had a great time until I made the mistake of turning on the first presidential debate. My family has definitely split into many branches of political thought since I moved out of the house. We will not be talking politics again. Then on Saturday, we went out to my in-laws to pick pumpkins, eat chili and hang out. My Spartans barely pulled out a win against Indiana and made me further glad that I sold all of my tickets before the season got started. Huge thanks to the in-laws side of the family for getting me totally set up for wood season. A couple of axes, a maul, sledgehammer and 2 wedges will all be broke in this fall as we cut our first firewood together for the new house.

Every so often there comes a time where you owe an apology, but after giving it, you still don't feel better. I know I'm forgiven, but my heart still aches knowing what an ass I was and that I can't take the hurt away. This is even worse if the apology goes out to my wife. We've put each through it over the years, but this one was my turn I guess. Everyone is talking about the great football game and marching band performance (both were amazing on film), but we never got to see it and that is my fault. I feel so horrible. She lives for football season and I ruined the second biggest game of the year. I hope I never make her feel so unhappy again. I love her with all that I am, so desperately, and I hate knowing I ruined what should have been a really great day for her. It's a day that I'll never get back but I will use it to focus on being a better husband and a better best friend in the future. I love you.