My Saturday plans included yard work, not a trip to urgent care. Of course, I can't remember a time when my weekend intentions ever included emergency medical treatment.  Huh.

Some background ...

I know I mentioned this previously, but to reinforce my past stance and offer an official AZ DIY Guy position statement on the matter, palm trees kinda suck. Don't get me wrong, a healthy palm tree stretching proudly towards the heavens really brings a delightful, tropical ambiance, even when there's no beach nearby, like say,.. in the Sonoran Desert, of the American Southwest.

I  whole-heartedly believe palm trees are absolutely beautiful, perhaps gorgeous in someone else's yard. 

The deal with hosting palm trees on your property is that they are just cosmetic trinkets and an absolute pain to deal with:

• They only offer a pea-sized dollop of shade, somewhere over in your neighbor's yard. Taller the tree, the further you have to quest to find the shade splotch.

• The type we have here in Arizona don't even have the common decency to grow coconuts; how is a handy DIY dude, such as myself ever going to craft my beautiful wife a rustic, tropical island bikini top?

• They sprout creepy, inhuman tentacles that split open to spew a buckshot spray of little black seeds and fluffy dried flowerey things to make a mess. Added Bonus: That's when they attract bees!

• These palms love to prank me with a never ending supply of crud destined to become biological flotsam in the freshly cleaned swimming pool.

• Worst of all, I'm forced to trim the never ending fountain of fronds that erupt from their crowns. They turn into a crusty brown rag mop of dried, dead branch-things that must be trimmed. God I hate that part.

That part was my Saturday morning. Seven palm trees needed a haircut and it needed to be done early, before the late summer temperatures got too infernally high.

It was not my first time into man-to-palm combat, but this time around I had a secret weapon. I shifted from my normal approach of perching on a wobbly, 10 foot tall, fiberglass step ladder to battle with an electric pole saw. I now have a sturdy, convertible, 24-in-1 ladder which transforms into a 17 foot extension ladder. I can now face my opponent directly.

I can get close enough to reach the top with my reciprocating saw on the small to medium size trees. That rascal rips through palm fronds like a hungry shark, much faster than the pole saw. No extension cord and none of that constant refilling of the chain saw bar-oil either.

I loved the stability from the wide stance base of my new ladder. I scampered up and sliced fronds like butter. Heaps of them sailed to the earth around the tree. 

Tool Tip: One of the most helpful tools I have in my collection is a fairly common one, a "Teenager"'.  If you don't have one yet, I heartily recommend getting one, or making one yourself (Note: They take several years to fully assemble). Mine is a hauling model, very handy for this project. 

All was going well. I attacked the last of the medium size palms, before I'd have to switch back to the unwieldy pole saw. It still wasn't over 100 degrees yet. Life was good.

Jack snapped this photo. This last photo,... with the fronds flipping down to the ground. Just a few cuts left. 

Van Gogh ain't got nothin' on me

One of the fronds swooped towards me. I dodged my big ol'  noggin out of the way,... well,... most of my noggin anyway. The end fronds caught air and flipped the whole "branch"' over. The "branch (?) clipped me on the side of the head as the stalk went by. Just a brief,, passing kiss to the ear. It didn't' even hurt. A little smack. How sweet.

So here's the thing about palm fronds stalks...

Yeah. Ugly shark-toothed, mutant ripper-beasts.

They're even worse in real life. Heartless bastards.

A gusher. 

It still didn't hurt much, but the blood was pouring. By the time I got to the house and called for paper towels, I looked like a walking homicide victim. My poor wife gasped and her eyes bulged when I appeared bloody at the back door, looking like I'd managed to cut my throat out. 

I took a shower and cleaned it up. I got it to pretty much stop bleeding. Oddly, it still didn't hurt, but there were some big flaps and chunks of meat hanging on there. You can't see it in the photo, but the edge of my ear below "X" mark folds open like a book. Super fun!

I hope you don't just visit my blog for my lovely ears.

I headed to a walk-in clinic for a quick check, just to see if it needed a stitch or two.  They cleaned it up again, gave me a tetanus shot before sending me over to urgent care for more fun and games.  

The urgent care Doc told me it wasn't really a cut, but the frond had "exploded my ear." That's doctor-speak for " hire a landscaper, dumbass." He treated me to some humorous horror stories about infected ears on teen girls who'd gotten those high-ear piercings and how dangerous it could get. After careful consideration, I decided amputation was not a life experience I wanted to pursue. I laid down and let him get to work. 

He cleaned the wound for its third time that day. Remarkably, that was less fun than it sounds. Since there wasn't much skin to mess with over the cartilage, he really couldn't stitch me up, so he glued me back together. He evidently used some sort of super glue, mixed with high-octane gasoline and rabid wasp venom, because that stung like hell. When the glue dried, a delightful, young nurse came in and merrily stabbed me in the derriere with a syringe full of antibiotic the size of a bowling pin.

Poking and prodding, two co-pays, two shots, a prescription for a week's worth antibiotics, and a bloody, glued-up ear later, I was done for the day. The trees would wait for tomorrow.

Waiting 15 minutes to see if I had a reaction,.... other than a stupid smirk. I spent some time on Facebook following the bloody photo post .  Naturally, an exchange with my blogging buddy Meryl of Picardy Project  (who seemed to rather enjoy my misadventure) led to this:

The Order of The Purple Hammer Badge

- AZ DIY Guy

Feel free to use* it as a badge if you earn it,... hopefully you don't earn it.

Work safe friends!

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