It’s a conspiracy
It really is remarkable how the Gods conspire against me.
I thought a bit of free time would allow a bit of writing time, or even dozing time.
Fat chance.
I haven't had a doze in a couple of weeks and have done precious little with the fucking Book. Too busy!
My latest little timewaster is the aftermath of the winds we had. Of course some wanker had to refer to the winds as a Superstorm! What is it with the meeja these days that everything has to be written in fucking superlatives?.
I lost three tree trees and bits of some more and it created a bit of a mess of The Manor. The main trees that came down are/were beautiful forty five year old silver birches. On came down and brought the other with it though they didn't actually collapse in total. They are over at a forty five degree angle leaning on the remains of a third. I don't know what to do about 'em to be honest. Stoney suggested dynamite but even I tend to think that is a little extreme. Chainsaws ain't the answer because wherever the trunks are cut, they will become very unstable, and being a couple of feet in diameter, I wouldn't want to be under 'em when they finally collapse. Maybe I'll just leave 'em there?
I'm just back in from a session with a chainsaw. It's the first nice day we have had in weeks – sun shining, little wind but fucking cold on the fingers. I managed to shift some of the minor damage [tiddly little thing with trunk-diameters of six to nine inches] and as a result I'm fucked and frozen.
And that's the problem these days. I just end up knackered at the end of the day. Sometimes I'm even too knackered to make it to the pub which is alarming. The old Interweb has taken a terrible hit as a result. It's a couple of months since I have touched Skype and most evenings I don't even get around to reading the comments here.
I'm getting old.
On a brighter note.. the snowdrops are coming into flower.
And the evenings are noticeably brighter.
It ain't all bad.
Perhaps a group of beavers could rectify your tree situation. Surely if you google "beavers for hire" you will find some.
Not a bad idea. I could move them into the pond.
However, I am NOT going to search the web for "beaver". Heh!
Media superlatives are caused by rolling news channels. Every trivial thing has to be hyped up in order to try to retain viewers – half the time there is nothing happening, but it's all presented in grave tones and somber words.
Another that amuses me is "innocent". Everyone who is accidentally killed or injured is an "innocent" victim, especially "innocent" children. No one is that innocent!
About the fallen/leaning ones "They are over at a forty five degree angle leaning on the remains of a third." It seems like a great opportunity to build a swing. You can show the grandkids how you let life rip in the pre-tv era.
Bloody hell! Are you trying to kill me? [Probably]. There is no way I am going to hang around under those trees. They must weigh several tons.
If you don't want a tree swing then how about inviting a group of ecological treehuggers around to take the fallen tree away and give it a decent burial? They might arrange a humanist memorial eulogy, with songs and poetry.
Grandad, I don't seem to be able to comment on your next post.
Is there a problem?
I thought there being only one comment there was strange.
Strange that you can't comment. Everything seems fine from this end?
Not strange that there's only one comment – no one cares any more. [*sniff*]
Had something similar in my neck of the woods in the form of an ice storm just a bit ago. The media called it the worst storm the northeastern US has had to date, etc, etc (even in Iranian newspapers no less). In this case, I tend to agree with them, superlatives and all what with having nearly an inch of solid ice coating everything by the time it was over. Lost most of a large sugar maple, the one nearest the house, which is one of three maples along the road. Thankfully it didn't take out part of the house when it came down. Other portions of the other maples came down as well.
The woods surrounding the neighborhood sounded like a rifle range the morning after the storm.
Then came a week of hard freeze (around zero F most days and deep freeze at night) so the ice stayed on. Luckily we were area that didn't lose power except for those whose house power lines came down with the branches. Lot's of work for the chainsaw but it can wait until the early spring if need be.