Plans are destined to be broken. I'm still far from completing the interior door replacement project started back in February and intended to finish in March. One thing after another just keeps getting in the way.
Now, it's time for quarterly bulk waste pick-up. I can't leave the yard work another three months or the HOA will nail us with a nasty-gram. This happened once when we first moved in, with no bulk pickup anytime near. The trees went a little wild, so we hired a landscape crew with a giant truck and a chipper to haul it all away. 800 bucks my friends; I've been DIY'ing it ever since.
Now, it's time for quarterly bulk waste pick-up. I can't leave the yard work another three months or the HOA will nail us with a nasty-gram. This happened once when we first moved in, with no bulk pickup anytime near. The trees went a little wild, so we hired a landscape crew with a giant truck and a chipper to haul it all away. 800 bucks my friends; I've been DIY'ing it ever since.
So it's outside again, in the hottest temperatures so far this year. We have mesquite trees that grow like weeds on steroids, dragging on the roof in no time. I started trimming from the peak of the roof like King Kong with a pole saw, just after 7:00 am, when it was "cool" in the high 80's.
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| "Not dead yet" |
I'd given this particular tree up for dead last year. I cut it back to the largest branches that I could get through with my saw. There wasn't a trace of green left. Then,...it burst back to life, overnight it seemed.
Following the cut, a massive clean-up begins. I have to drag this jungle of green out to the curb...
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| Welcome to the jungle, no fun and games |
... and line it up for processing like a slaughterhouse.
It took big-ass clippers, an aggressive-bladed reciprocating saw, and gallons of frosty, refreshing beverages to work through four loads of this.
Next, it was onto the palms. These bee-infested Q-tips of doom had to be cut back before they got out of control.
At least I can still catch them from a ten foot ladder with a pole saw. Some of the neighborhood trees are 40-50 feet, and require a professional to scale up and trim them. They're neat looking, but useless trees. At best they throw a 5 foot blotch of shade in the neighbor's yard, two doors down.
You have to cut these saw-toothed death-fronds when they're still green and cut easily. I have refined a talent at getting them to drop just right where they manage to fly directly at me, leaving nice, bright red scratches on my arms, legs, and neck so that I have to go back to work looking like I have spent time in a burlap sack fighting a pissed off alley cat. Of course, this is not a good comparison, because cat scratches probably wouldn't welt up quite so badly from an allergic reaction.
Finally, I ended up with a massive beaver-dam of waste, waiting to be picked up by our heroic cadre of the Phoenix waste collection services.
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| Cropped high and tight |
At least this particular project is done for a few months. Now I can get back on track with the door project,... well, after I finish painting the facia and the front of the house,... and installing drip edge, and fixing the pool filter. Evidently, I'm supposed to spend June in Phoenix outside, lovely.
Oh yeah, I nearly forgot: Meet the new twins!
I finally got to break in a new pair of Red Wings. I bought the same style I'd had to retire recently. I really like the 8683 Men's Hiker Boot. These are much better on the old aching dogs than shoes for this sort of work. Fare thee well old pair, gone but not forgotten.
Beloved Red Wing work boots
(original pair)
2003 - 2013