Gang Aft Agley

Due to our inability to identify certain plants this last weekend, both S and I are on a course of prednisone. S is much more in need of it for the poison ivy, as it has spread up onto her face, right below her eyes. I am using it to combat the rapidly spreading rash throught my legs and trunk, though it will also help with my breathing, as it is what i used last year after visiting the hospital.

Keigan and I spent some time sunday on the tractor mowing paths through the poison ivy, Hopefully with some aggresive mowing we can get it down to ground level and keep at it.

My arms and legs are a mess, but S has it on her neck. The kids seem to have escaped this time.

We lost power to the house about 15 minutes after S and Caden returned home from the volleyball game. Because of the news we had just recieved, S felt best about sleeping in town for the night, so we packed up and went to her moms house.

The boys were in heaven the next morning, as they went downstairs and watched cartoons for a while.

Monday morning the power went out again, causing me to be late for work.

We went for a walk saturday afternoon, just before Caden and S went to go see the Volleyball game. Our walk started off looking at the Pecan trees, Of which we keep locating more and more. It looks like pecan season will stretch at least another week or so, though it takes a little more effort than a few weeks ago.

We crossed over the last fence on our way east, virgin ground as far as our explorations, with good reason, we came across shoulder height, upright woody shrubs, with white berries hanging out on the top. S and I talked about them, not knowing what they were, but memorized their appearance to look up later. We came across two pecan trees at the north eastern corer of our property, that looked good for the boys to climb. No sooner had they started than I noticed a hairy vine cling to the trunk of the tree that Keigan was in. Yelling at him to stop, because of poison ivy we directed him to the tree his brother was in while we examined the vine to verify that it was indeed poison ivy. tracing its growth we saw that it ended in small woody shrubs with white berries. Our mystery plant was identified. Nothing like swimming in the stuff. We quickly made our way out of that corner of the woods and warned the boys not to return. Quick walk down the tracks brought us home and Showers for everyone.

Monday morning update: itchy arms for me, with just the thought of wading in it enough to cause the rest of me to start itching.

More wood chopping. The boys and I set out to pull down a large tree that was standing dead. Only problem was that it was in an enclosed space, that we didnt want to have anything destroyed.

I threw a rope around a fork it it and we used the rope to help guide the fall into the crook of another tree, preventing it from smashing any fences on the way down. I also cut it low on that side, to have it fall where we wanted but the rope was just extra insurance. After tying the rope off to a large tree out of the way I had the boys hang from it as I cut the last side of the tree, as it started to slowly fall, they ducked behind that tree, putting three trees between them and the falling one. Unforunately it wasnt as dramatic as we hoped and we ended up with the tree still standing, just no longer connected to the stump.

Caden wandered inside at this point no longer interested, He took kiay in with him, she had been sitting watching me. Keigan and I got busy trying to figure out how to get the tree down, we cut out the branch it was leaning in, no luck, other branches were still holding it up. Finally keigan suggested cutting it agin, so we cut it about four feet up, and ended up with a seriosly disjointed tree that somehow still stood. A couple of running jumps at the cut, and we had it slowly straighten back up, the four foot section was now leaning. Keigan saved the day with his idea of fetching the hatchets. We toook turn chopping at the tree, rounding out where it was stuck so that it would slide. Finally it dropped down, and we had a standing tree four feet shorter than at the stare, and about four feet east of its original position.

Repeat last few steps and we had a tree standing defiantly, now about ten feet shorter than at the start. At this point I could reach the major fork, and was able to get half of the tree to fall, missing the fences as planned.

Keigan and I left it at that point, with the tree that will not fall still standing waiting for us to finish it off.

Next we turned our attention to splitting the logs that we had managed to obtain, Keigan and Caden( started ito them with the hatchets, while I used the maul to split others. After we were all severely winded, and me sure that my back would ache on the morrow, we called it quits, and headed in defeated.

Round two to be later in the week.

after refreshments we headed out back to scope out the pecans, see how many were left, and mow a trail to the trees. The homeschool group is coming over tomorrow to pick pecans. I hope they get enough, I am not sure how long they will last on the trees, Thanksgiving looks like a long time to hold out hope for. But perhaps as I drive the tractor to the back we will fing more trees, until now the poison ivy has slowed our exploration to those far corners.