Day 2652

 I woke up at 7:30, got up and did the pet stuff and had breakfast.  Then I went out to start cutting down the dead branches I'd noticed yesterday.

Things didn't start out well.  The battery in the Ranger was dead, so I put the charger on it.  Then I took the ladder and the pole saw to the deck.  I cut down the dead branch we'd missed and cut it into pieces.  Ellen helped me throw the pieces over the fence.

After that everything went back to the trees by the well head.  Three trees all had overlooked dead branches.  Two were relatively easy to cut down.  The third was not.  I had to climb up high on the ladder to reach it.  When I cut it down it stuck in the middle of the tree.  I had to cut pieces off of it and pull them out one by one.  There was a higher branch that I couldn't get to at all.

The final tree was on the other side of the trailer.  Two of it's branches had broken and were covering other trees.  I cut it out piecemeal.

The Ranger battery still wasn't charged and we had at least four loads of branches to haul away.  Ellen decided to haul one into the woods by the trailer.  I decided to take the chainsaw and walk the perimeter fence.  I started by cutting down the one tree in front that I knew needed it.

I got about halfway down the side by Lee before I found a couple of branches that needed to be cut.  I continued down that side and found a couple of more small branches.  As usual getting to the fence near the far corner was hard because of the growth.  It was good I worked through it, because there was another branch down there.

The back fence was pretty clear except for two large dead branches that were hanging over the fence.  The chain came off while I was cutting the second.  I had to take the saw back to the garage to fix it.  I finished the dead branch and cut a small tree that had fallen on the fence.  That's when things got worse.

A large double tree had come uprooted and fallen on the fence.  The fence wasn't damaged, but it too a while to cut everything away.  I was thinking I was pretty much done when I got to a tree whose broken branches had fallen on the fence by the power lines and crushed it.  I spent quite a while cutting branches and throwing them over the fence into the easement.

By then it was 1 and I was hot, tired, and a little bloody from branch scratches.  I put the saw in the garage and went inside to eat lunch.  The Ranger still wasn't charged.

About 2 I went back outside.  The Ranger was charged enough to start, so Ellen and I started loading it up.  It took three trips to take everything back to the pile by the back storage building.  The pile had shrunk a little, which was good.  It made piling new stuff on a lot easier.

After that I put everything away and went inside for a shower.  It felt really good.  After that shower I did a little reading and had a nap.

Ellen fixed meatloaf for dinner.  After dinner we watched videos together.

I think I can finally accurately say that the big work activities for this Spring are over.  I sure hope so.